# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 08 30_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching pass not away, now and nevermore." (Rev. of John, Chap. 14, v. 6. 7.)

Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Vol. 10.  St. Louis, Mo., August 30, 1853.  No. 1.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 Cents.
Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the Editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Preface of the Editor
to the Tenth Volume of the "Lutheraner."

If at the beginning of this new volume we cast a glance back upon the one now ended, it is very mixed feelings that take possession of us. Above all, we must confess it, a deep sadness fills our heart. In the year that has passed we were compelled to take up a serious struggle, not so much with those who are outside our Church, as rather with such as call the Evangelical Lutheran Church their mother together with us. We feel no regret, indeed, either that we conducted this struggle or how we conducted it. We thank God rather that He has opened our eyes to recognize the false doctrines now springing up in our Church, and that He has strengthened us by His Holy Spirit to raise our voice against them without regard to the favor or disfavor of men. No, it is something else that now makes us look back upon the recent past with deep sadness. For not only has our struggle, as the struggles within the orthodox Church always are, been a right pasture for the enemies of the truth, for their hostile and gloating hearts, but it has also, it may be, become a stone of stumbling to many an honest member of our Church; and, what is most lamentable, many Lutherans here, to whom it is not yet a true earnestness to preserve our Church's doctrine and to carry out strictly the principles laid down in the Confessions, who therefore might very well have needed a united testimony from our side and from the side of our opponents against their half-and-half way, have made use of our struggle to assume the role of judges standing above the parties, and have thus, instead of going forward, in many ways gone backward. Yes, that is what above all pains and oppresses us in this matter. Yet we have also a comfort against it. Our comfort is, namely, that God alone has given us the command to contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints, Jude 3, 4, but that He has not left to us the care for the end of our struggle, and has reserved this care to Himself. This comforts us therefore also when we see that even those who otherwise wish us well and are one with us in doctrine do not perceive the rightness and necessity of our procedure, and of the manner and way of our struggle, but wish to divide with us and our opponents the blame for the offense that has arisen. For if only God keeps His honor and the truth its own, what is it then, if we sinful servants of both gain nothing in this service but misjudgment and an evil report? Luther says: "Let the spirits clash and meet one another; if some are meanwhile led astray: well then, so it goes according to the proper course of war; where there is a fight and battle, there some must fall and be wounded; but he who fights honestly will be crowned."

Yet it is not sadness alone, as has been said, which we cannot resist when we look back upon the last year of our paper; it is at the same time the feeling of the most heartfelt joy and of the humblest thanks by which we are moved on this occasion. Our "Lutheraner" has without doubt had to endure the severest test in the year now lying behind us again. In this time he has had to be a messenger who, with few exceptions, could bring his readers almost always only what was unrefreshing and depressing; he has had to do it for the sake of God's honor and for the truth's sake, even at the risk that he would lose many of his friends. And, thanks be to the LORD! the "Lutheraner" has stood his test! Not only has God graciously helped him through all hindrances, so that he today again, in defiance of all his enemies who wish him death and destruction, joyfully begins his new course; but he has also, in the year just past, won hundreds of new friends again. Above all, however, we must humbly thank God for it