# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S1024
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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When I learned this, I wrote a letter to him, in which I set before him his wrong, earnestly admonished him to desist from his purpose, and declared myself ready for any closer discussion, whether privately or publicly. Thereupon two more church elders, and indeed such as had always enjoyed his particular confidence, were sent to him for the same purpose. In vain. He was bitter and scornful, ascribed these steps to the great fear which we had of him, expressed himself mockingly about my letter, and boasted of all he would answer me. On the 11th Sunday after Trinity he preached for the first time in the courthouse, but the answer he has owed me to this day. Withal he gave, according to circumstances and persons, various kinds of reasons why he had left his congregation. Now it was said that he had received too little salary, and that it was not to be expected of a man like him that he should live among peasants in the bush. Now he hinted once that there was no proper Lutheran church here, or that the congregation here was really still his own. Now he admitted that the local Zion's Church was orthodox, but who would hinder him from founding a second one, especially since ours was already too full? The English preachers did the same. People also appealed to this, that Pastors Grabau and Winkler had bidden him do it. Besides, many means were employed to make our church members disaffected and to procure followers for him. An announcement appeared in the newspaper; he himself invited several of our people, even under the pretense that this one and that one (e.g., even elders of the congregation, none of whom had ever thought of such a thing) would also go over to him, that certainly half of the congregation would fall to him. The rumor was spread that among the Americans very considerable sums had already been collected for the building of a church—and the like. Therefore it is hard for us to believe that the Rev. Mr. S. left his bush congregation for conscience' sake and turned again to Cleveland. Otherwise he would surely not have gone to work so secretly and dishonestly, but would have come forward openly, and would first have admonished the Cleveland congregation to desist from the supposed wrong against him, or from any false doctrine, or would at least not have refused the proffered conversation.

Nowadays the Rev. Mr. S. has had ample time to see that he has been somewhat deceived in his great expectations. For in spite of the fact that there was no lack of good will, nor of attempts, to destroy our congregation; in spite of the fact that the Rev. Mr. Grabau himself has been here twice since, not a single member of the congregation has fallen away from us to this day, and the hearers of Pastor S., at first about sixteen, have by degrees so melted away that, as we learn from the best source, he has already for some Sundays not preached any more. The Euclid congregation, finally, after many fruitless oral and written admonitions, has recently notified him that it will now call another preacher.

This is, passing over many individual incidents which can be supplied upon request, the course of this sad affair down to the present day.

Now we will hear what the Informatorium has to say about this matter. In No. 11, 1st volume, it says:

"On this journey he (the Rev. Mr. Krause) is said to have installed a factionist preacher in Cleveland; for—as I (the Rev. Mr. Winkler) have been informed by someone who experienced it himself—the Missouri Synod has there played the same game as in Detroit, has driven the lawful pastor out of the church built by him with great labor and brought in one of their gentlemen."

Since the Rev. Mr. S., as reported, had declared that he had no part in these words, we called upon the Rev. Mr. Winkler in No. 20 of the "Lutheraner," giving the name of his informant, either to prove what he had said or to retract it. I think that was no unreasonable demand. For even if one knows already that from spun yarn and the faction-news of the Informatorium a good part generally falls off, it is nevertheless no small matter to be written out into the world in this fashion.—But what now does the Rev. Mr. W. do, the man who is always crying and writing: "Proofs, proofs!" and that in large letters, doubly underscored, what does he do?—I would truly not say it of him, if it did not lie before me in black and white, else he would cry to heaven,—he answers in No. 4:

"To this let it serve as answer that the undersigned has made further inquiry in the matter, and other honest people, who experienced all of it with them, confirm the statement of the first informant as entirely true." And in another number he remarks incidentally that he has lately spoken again with such an honest man.

That is about as if Hans were to say to Kunz: "You villain, you gallows-bird! You have stolen!" And Kunz answers thereupon: "Now, now!—and how do you prove that?"—and Hans then would say: "I? prove?—oh, good friend! just be content. The honest Gossip Neidhardt reported it to me, the honest Cousin Tittle-tattle confirmed it, and the honest Mr. Nobody has also said it. So just believe it with confidence, you are and remain a gallows-bird!"

If this is now the sort of proofs on which the Rev. Mr. W. is always so insistent, then one can indeed prove quite a lot with it, if the days are long and the ears of the hearers not too short; but would he be content if he were paid in the same coin? The Rev. Mr. W. is indeed, as one sees in the Informatorium, a true lamb; but it will surely not be immodest to suppose that even Winkler's meekness would not find such proofs entirely sufficient. Probably he would call something like that "Winkel-züge" [crooked dodges], if he did not have a certain natural aversion to this word. It would turn out curiously now if Kunz wanted to prove to Hans at length and in detail that he really and truly had not stolen; he would rather do something else! So let the reader make for himself his further thoughts about Hans. We turn to the Rev. Mr. Grabau.

The Informators, namely, know excellently how to work into each other's hands. The one makes the iron hot, the other strikes upon it. So it is blow upon blow on the old anvil; though they do not hit the nail on the head—they hammer all the same.

In No. 3 the Rev. Mr. G. writes: "In Cleveland, as far as has become known to us through the Rev. Mr. Schmidt himself, it was rebels and hostile people who drove him out, on whose side Mr. Sihler placed himself, persuading P. S., when he was lying ill, to resign, and thrusting in the present Mr. Schwan. Thus then Schwan is partly an intruded preacher, partly a real factionist preacher, as one who gives the Lord's Supper to the enemies of their lawful, expelled pastor. This Schwan is now called the successor in office of the Rev. P. Schmidt. So, again, a Missourian trick! Krause is said to have installed the factionist priest at Cleveland and in doing so to have praised P. Schmidt."

This is now a regular show-piece and cabinet-piece from the Buffalo smithy, of genuine grain and kind, and with the stamp of the old master. As many words, so many untruths. And they are not small, but like their father, the blacksmith,—big, coarse, clumsy, pot-bellied—yet have short, thin little legs. Since they could not run long with these, and so had to be retracted already in No. 4, we can again spare ourselves the trouble of giving them a proper drubbing. For it says in No. 4 under the title: Berichtigung einiger Irrungen im Informatorium:

"The Rev. Mr. Schmidt in Cleveland is so kind as to inform us, 'that he resigned when two elders (hostile to him) came to him and demanded this at a time when he was sick (yet not lying sick). Further, that the Rev. Dr. Sihler considered it advisable to let another preacher come to Cleveland, since he feared that the strife might soon break out again! He did not ask the Rev. P. S. whether he was content with it! Had the Rev. Dr. Sihler called upon the Rev. P. Schmidt to continue his office and encouraged him (under the persecution of the adversaries), he would have continued the office. Many of his sincere church members were not content that he thus left the office, went to him and requested him to hold divine service henceforth for them; he replied to them at that time (in faintheartedness) that he could not continue the office,' that is, on account of the enmity of the factionists against God's Word.

(To be continued.)