# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S1001
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Supplement to No. 8, Volume 9, of the Lutheraner.

I.

The Lutheran Trinity Congregation of Orthodox Confession at Milwaukie and the Church Ministerium of the Synod of Buffalo in the Years 1845—1847.*

* Herewith the reader receives the promised "Supplement." At first we intended to arrange the matter belonging to it chronologically. But in order not to delay any longer the fulfilment of our promise, we shall now communicate the contributions received one after another, without regard to the order of time, as space may permit.

The Editors of the "Lutheraner."

The dispute which arose in the year 1845 between the congregation here and its pastor at that time, Rev. Mr. Krause, and in consequence of which its connection with the Buffalo Synod was dissolved, has been set forth by our opponents in their second Synodal Letter briefly and after their own fashion. Audiatur et altera pars (that is, let the other side also be heard!) True, the staff has already been broken even over the following report, before it came into being, to say nothing of its being given to publication; yet the Christian reader may be assured that it is strictly according to the truth, and for the most part nothing but a faithful extract from the pertinent documents preserved in the congregation's archive, which were already laid before the Synod in the year 1847 and again in the year 1850, and which, if need be, can also be published in due time.

Neither is Pastor Krause's disgrace sought here, nor does one wish to uncover the sins of our opponents with malicious joy. God knows that the writer of this goes about it with reluctance, to drag the old, sorrowful affair again into public view. Indeed, Pastor Krause reconciled himself with the congregation here in the late autumn of 1850, and after laying aside the bandage which he too wore over his eyes in his former fellowship, acknowledged that that congregation was in the right in separating from him, although, as indeed is not denied, sin and uncleanness also occurred on its side,—and what Christian, who himself lives solely by grace, will with joy make manifest the sins even of his enemies!—But not only has the congregation here and its pastors been presented most liberally, ever since the appearance of the second Synodal Letter and of the Informatorium, with the title "faction, factious priests," and its hitherto silence in the face of all these slanders and accusations been interpreted to its disgrace; but P. Grabau himself has also repeatedly and most hotly challenged us to defend ourselves. Therefore let it be done out of necessity and for the sake of higher considerations, what we would so gladly have left undone for love's sake!

From Freistadt P. Krause served the congregation here as a filial church, which each time had him brought to it by a special conveyance; now and then, however, he also made use of a farmer's conveyance that offered itself to him. In order to be able to come to Milwaukie as often as possible and not always to be dependent upon the vehicles of others, P. Krause proposed to the congregation here in the year 1845 that it help him to procure a horse and wagon in such a way that every communicant should contribute three cents for twenty weeks, and thus from 150 communicants the sum of 90 dollars would be raised. But since the congregation, after many written and oral negotiations with the pastor about this proposal, could not come to an agreement, he called upon it, after the close of the service on St. James's Day, to give him a definite answer after the lapse of a week. Accordingly the congregation deliberated on the 10th Sunday after Trinity, and forthwith notified the pastor in writing that it could not accept his proposal, but had resolved that it would have him conveyed to and fro every six weeks by a good conveyance; but if he wished to come to it besides, which could only be welcome to it, it might be done by a conveyance free of cost to it, since for the present it was not in a position to raise more for conveyance among themselves.* Although now P. Krause formerly, when he could come at the congregation's expense as often as he wished, did not visit it more frequently than every 6 weeks at most, and although in an earlier letter of the year 1844 he had left it entirely to the will of the congregation how often it would have him fetched: yet on account of this resolution there followed on the 14th of August a violent letter of rebuke from him, which at his request had to be read to the congregation on the next following Sunday. That the resolution passed on the 10th Sunday after Trinity was sinful, because the congregation had thereby intruded upon the pastor's office; that those who had passed the resolution esteemed twenty times three cents higher than their salvation; that the pastor was thereby made a pulpit-hireling by the term, and deprived of his office; that under such circumstances he could no longer with a good conscience administer the office in the congregation at Milwaukie. This was the content of the letter of rebuke. To this letter the congregation gave a written answer, of which indeed no copy is now extant, in which, however, according to the testimony of P. Kindermann himself, it declared that it had by no means wished to intrude upon its pastor's office, and that it would forgive him wherever it had sinned against him in words or otherwise. On the 16th Sunday after Trinity P. Krause came himself, and in the sermon called his hearers bloated paunches, stupid oxen, old swine, etc., and after the sermon read out a proclamation to the effect that all who had taken part in this resolution could not be admitted to the Holy Supper until they had publicly acknowledged their sin and asked pardon. Hereupon great excitement arose after the service among the members of the congregation, in consequence of which the two congregational elders, Bruß and Eggert, were sent to P. Krause to request him to hold a congregational meeting in the afternoon, in order to come to an understanding with the congregation about his harsh sermon, and also to name those who had deserved to be turned away from the Holy Supper, that they might be admonished to repentance. With the words: "I have preached that, and it stays so," P. Krause refused the request for a meeting.

* Each conveyance at that time cost the congregation 8 dollars, owing to the bad roads and the scarcity of vehicles.

To heal the sorrowful rupture, a part of the congregation, through the elders Bruß and Bewersdorf, applied for an investigation to the neighboring minister and father confessor of their pastor, P. Kindermann at Kirchhayn. The letters which P. Kindermann wrote to the congregation about this are before the writer, and he cannot but publicly acknowledge his fatherly and impartial bearing in these letters. Would to God P. Kindermann had continued in that manner! Declining the investigation desired, because he was not commissioned for it by the Church Ministerium, he advises in his first letter, of the 19th of Sept., to apply for an investigation to the Church Ministerium, but promises first to make the attempt, by a private conversation with P. Krause, to restore the disturbed peace. On the 8th of Oct. following he reports that his remonstrance to P. Krause had not had the desired result, exhorts the congregation to earnest examination and to penitent confession, where all or individual members of the congregation might have erred, but declares that the refusal to buy a horse for the pastor was a matter by itself, and could not yet bring with it exclusion from the Holy Supper, unless other sins should have been attached to it which would merit such punishment. In a letter of the 11th of Dec. he assures the congregation most earnestly that he, for his own person and in the office given him by God, of building the congregation of Christ, would act in this matter in the most conscientious manner, so that the complainants would have no cause to complain that justice had been taken out of their hands; he hoped that the like would also be done by the other two members of the Ministerium. On the 9th of Febr. 1846 he finally writes: "I cannot conceive that P. Krause should be justified in his manifestly unjust cause."

Kindermann's counsel, to lodge a complaint with the Church Ministerium, was followed. The congregation sent to the Senior, P. Grabau, a written complaint, after it had first handed it to Kindermann for examination. There followed thereupon a threefold written opinion from the Pastors Grabau, v. Rohr and Kindermann. In order not to weary the reader's patience, only the principal points are communicated here. Grabau presupposes in his opinion that the congregation, in common with the pastor, had passed a proper and valid resolution to purchase a horse, and had wantonly overturned it again in the pastor's absence; he sharply rebukes this, and then makes proposals of peace. But with regard to the aforesaid sermon of rebuke, Grabau says that he could have wished P. Krause had been more master of his usual courage, and, regardless of the opposing party, had preached as usual and then after the service had held a congregational meeting, in order to bring home to the congregation its wrong in holding meetings behind the pastor's back and overturning resolutions already passed. The opinion of v. Rohr agrees