# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 08 30_S4
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

4

proves most strikingly my first report, sent to Pfarrer Löhe, of July 7, 1845. Thank God, I made a copy of it at that time, and can therefore communicate the pertinent passage here word for word. "After I had stated the above-mentioned purpose of my journey to Detroit, I described the difficult position which a Lutheran pastor has to take between the many Catholics there on the one hand and the Rationalists on the other, and then concluded with the following words: 'From all this you will see that I would not have been equal to the office in Detroit, and that therefore the filling of this post by Prof. Winkler is to be accounted a piece of good fortune.'"

This is the simple state of the facts, the key to the "raging of Satan in the Church at Detroit!"

The reader sees, Pastor Winkler has with his alleged key unlocked nothing but — his own wicked heart.†)

†) In like manner Pastor Winkler reveals what spirit's child he is, in that in the same essay he seeks to put to shame our dear Professor Crämer, whom the LORD may yet further set for a blessing to our Church, by charging him (Herr Winkler) with the political pranks, bewept with hot tears and long since forgiven through Christ's blood, which he committed once in his unconverted state, when he did not yet know his LORD JESUS. Shame upon such meanness! Ed.

Friedrich Lochner,
Lutheran pastor at Milwaukie.

The Bloodbath of Thorn.

A Picture from the History of the Jesuits
by
K. F. Ledderhose.*)

*) We also communicate this excellent and interesting account by Ledderhose, printed in the New Yorker Missions-Blatt, of the atrocities which the Jesuits committed somewhat more than a hundred years ago upon the Lutherans of Thorn. We consider this the more necessary, the more powerful the influence of that crafty, bloodthirsty Order becomes here from day to day, and the more the Roman Catholic papers here exert themselves above all to whitewash this Order. Ed.

To let the bloodbath of Thorn cry out from a past of more than a hundred years into the present will, to be sure, not please all, least of all the descendants of those who have stained themselves with it; but it teaches us to open our eyes, and to look upon those who wear sheep's clothing, and yet inwardly are ravening wolves. We mean the Jesuits, who act quite innocent and give themselves out as saviors of mankind and yet are destroyers. But it rejoices all who believe in Christ that the Church of Christ has had members at all times who have sealed their faith with their blood. May this history serve many for comfort and for watchfulness!

The city of Thorn, which at the present day stands under the scepter of the Kings of Prussia, derives the time of its origin from as far back as the thirteenth century. Its first inhabitants were Germans, brought thither by the Knights of the German Order, who took it to heart to build the city in Polish Prussia. So German speech and custom came into those regions. The city lies on the right bank of the Vistula. By its advantageous situation it soon rose to surprising greatness, to wealth and prestige. The city received many liberties and rights. It was allowed to choose from its midst its judges and magistracy, and to punish criminals. It was exempt from tolls. Yet with all this it stood under the German Order, which had a strong castle in Thorn. But the excessive severity of the Order bred discontent. A part of Prussia tore itself loose, among them Thorn also. Already in the year 1454 the German castle in the city fell. The estates of the severed part of Prussia placed themselves under the protection of the King of Poland, Casimir the Great. They kept all their rights. The majesty of the king, however, they honored in no other relation than that they were to have the same friends and enemies and in cases of need to stand by one another. The city magistracies received still greater power, namely the so-called great cities Thorn, Elbing and Danzig. Yet in the course of time their prerogatives were weakened.

We stand now, however, at the church-historical development of the city of Thorn, the main matter for our purpose. Hardly had the trumpet of the angel with the eternal gospel sounded in Wittenberg, when this voice was heard also in Thorn. But since to the bishops, and particularly to King Sigismund, this sweet sound of peace rang offensive, there were at first only secret friends of the Gospel. Already in the year 1520 a sharp order was issued against the introduction of Luther's writings, but orders, even when they proceed from kings or emperors, avail nothing, if the Lord of the Church in His eternal mercy has resolved to bring His Word. So it went also in Poland, and especially in Thorn. After fruitless attempts, particularly on the part of Bishop Hosius, who for the sake of his zeal for Rome was made a Cardinal, King Sigismund Augustus at last, in the year 1557, granted the city an ample privilege, and the following kings renewed and confirmed all the same. The Evangelicals received all the churches for their free exercise of religion. Only at the St. John's church was a Roman priest permitted to hold his worship in a special chapel. The Council had the right to call preachers of the Augsburg Confession. The Gymnasium also and the schools were arranged according to the mind of the divine Word.

The fundamental laws of the realm, which were solemnly sworn to by the kings at their coronation, protected liberty of conscience.

But wickedness, cunning and violence weakened, restricted, perverted, broke the rights of the Evangelicals. We named Bishop Hosius of Ermeland above. He was chiefly the one who brought the Jesuits, then newly arisen, to Poland. Already in the year 1593 their friends carried it through that the St. John's parish church was taken from the Lutherans by a royal decree and assigned to the Romans. Hardly had Bishop Tylicki of Culm obtained this, when he gave the pastor two Jesuits, that they might assist him with preaching and hearing confession. They kept quite quiet at first, in order to win a good opinion among the people. But it was not long before a royal decree was obtained which assured the Jesuits of public school-keeping in Thorn. The Council complained of it; but it availed nothing. In the year 1606 the Jesuits already held a procession in the St. John's churchyard. Then the Council at last intervened and drove the Jesuits out of the city. The Jesuit-minded court had hardly received word of it, when a commissioner came to Thorn to investigate; the Jesuits followed after him and took possession of church and pulpit. There were, to be sure, complaints upon complaints, but the Jesuits gained ever firmer footing, they took one piece of liberty after another into possession.

When Charles Gustavus ascended the throne in Sweden in the year 1654, the King of Poland, John Casimir, raised old claims, and protested against Charles Gustavus's coronation. Thereupon the Swede advanced upon Poland itself with surprising progress, and on the 3rd of May, 1660, a peace was made which was concluded in the Cistercian monastery of Oliva, not far from Danzig. This peace is of significance for our history, for to the cities situated in Polish Prussia were guaranteed therein all their rights, liberties and privileges in spiritual and temporal matters, as they had had them before the war. To this belonged also that the Prussian cities should be free from Polish jurisdiction. This peace, however, brought the cities no rest. The Jesuits took possession again in Thorn of their college together with the St. John's church, and the Benedictine nuns raised wholly unlawful claims to the parish church of St. James with its appurtenances. All refutations on the part of Thorn, all protests of the King of Sweden through his envoy, availed nothing, the nuns prevailed. So the people of Thorn lost their parish church, and had to have a town hall fitted up for worship. Now only the one Marienkirche with the Gymnasium remained the property of the Evangelicals. This also the Catholics would gladly have had. They had long lain in wait for it, and at last they prevailed by a bloody way.

The bitterness among the people of Thorn against the Jesuits was great. And that is no won-