# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 09 13_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

13

While, then, the tottering Turkish empire seems for the present to have been rescued so far as to drag itself on a few years longer, another great empire is tottering, nay falling, even now: China. That is that wonderful land in Asia in which the people live so densely crowded together as hardly anywhere else. Tea especially and silk come to us from there. The religion of the greater part of the Chinese is Fohism (Buddhism), since they worship the universe as deity; they call China the Kingdom of the Middle or of Heaven, and they regard their emperor as the present god, the son of heaven and earth, who gives sunshine and rain and therefore always apologizes most politely to his subjects when floods arise through much rain and do damage: "He had made a mistake; he would do better another time." Until a few years ago, and since 1746, every Christian missionary who penetrated into China was put to death as soon as he was caught preaching the Word of God; but the English have forced the emperor of China to open his land to Christian missionaries. Since, therefore, the Word of God had already been preached in secret earlier by several preachers, namely a German, Gützlaff, many Christian preachers have been sent there in recent years and have here and there gathered congregations and built churches. For several years now news has been coming to us that the descendants of an old imperial house, which had been driven out by the forefathers of the present emperor, the Manchu Tartars, have risen up and are gradually bringing one part of the land after another under their power. At last, this year, the two new kings, Yang and Sian, pressed forward as far as the second city of the empire, Nanking, and conquered it; the armies of the former emperor are continually beaten, the people fall away from him almost everywhere, and it seems that his dominion is coming to an end. And now we hear that the two new kings and their followers, who call themselves the Schangti brotherhood, assert that they are Christians. They describe their origin as follows: A Chinese named Hung Siu Tsiuen came in 1846 to Canton, the chief commercial city of the empire, where the Europeans and Americans have their factories, and had himself instructed there in the Word of God by a missionary. Returned to his home, he gathered there a kind of congregation, which was soon persecuted by the Chinese authorities. Under the persecution the thought seized him that he was called to destroy the Manchu Tartars, that is, the emperor of China and his officials, the mandarins. Evidently he alone set the two kings named above, descendants of the former expelled ruling house, at the head of his followers, and has so far had an easy task in overcoming the Manchus, slaughtering them, and conquering the land. They spread several religious books around and about them, one of which, called "the Book of the Religious Teachings of the Thae Ping Dynasty," has been translated into English. After an exhortation to the Chinese that they should worship the "Great God" who has revealed himself, there follows in this book a presentation of the doctrines of faith, which is taken chiefly from the Old Testament, but asserts that the forefathers of the Chinese had already had this doctrine, and that therefore the Chinese should only return to the faith of the fathers. All men are sinners, they say, but redeemed through Jesus Christ, whom they do not call God's Son, because every Chinese at that name would think of the emperor of China, but whom they call their Lord, the Savior of the world and heavenly brother. The following formula they are to use for the praise of God:

We praise God, our holy and heavenly Father,
We praise Jesus, the holy Lord and Savior of the world,
We praise the Holy Spirit, the holy Wisdom,
We praise the three Persons, who united form one true Spirit.

Prayers to God, among them also the "Prayer of a Penitent Sinner," and finally the holy Ten Commandments make up the further contents of this book. The holy Ten Commandments in particular are furnished with expositions and with songs which put the exposition into verse. The whole testifies that the author has received instruction in Christianity, but not in its pure doctrine, rather after the English-American manner, which indeed teaches Christ as the Redeemer of the world, but yet again and again makes law out of the Gospel, and in particular mixes together God's kingdom and the kingdom of the world, church government and earthly government, Christian and political liberty, and therefore also does not understand the testimonies which Scripture gives against all use of the sword against the government. But what if the Christians were to pray diligently and fervently that the kingdom of God might come to the 100 and more millions of Chinese? God also turns evil to good, and the rebellion of Siu-Tsiuen may, through God's wonderful government, serve to this end, that God's Word may conquer and those heathen may learn in right faith to bow their knees in the name of Jesus, the highly praised King of all kings and Lord of all lords.

God bless you who give His holy Word pure and clear, and in it give His heavenly peace, and earthly peace and times of peace besides.

The Two Keys of Herr Prof. Winkler.

Prof. Winkler, who is untiring in spewing forth always the same poison, has at last left the field of battle, amid malicious attacks on Prof. Crämer. But lest it be forgotten with what weapons he fought, they hang in the form of two keys in the temple of the god of war whom Winkler serves (see Kirchl. Informator. Jahrg. 3. Num. 2. p. 11). It seems that the man must instinctively thereby attest the Roman influence to which he has exposed himself through his resistance to the Lutheran doctrine. For just as the Pope at Rome makes all his injustices and godless perversions of the Word of God unassailable by bearing the two world-famous keys in his coat of arms, so our hero of Detroit fights his way victoriously through all the accusations that have been raised against him with his two keys. Let us have a look at them.

The first is: "My preacher's position in Detroit had already been given in Germany to another;—therefore I was in the way of the gentlemen." (see note below*)

To whom, then, was the position given? To F. Lochner, who was never pastor in Detroit. The key therefore does not lock; a second, indeed, would not be needed otherwise.

The second is: "A demagogic theologian, or theological demagogue, coming from Bavaria, believed himself called to carry out the work of my expulsion, namely: Herr A. Crämer."

However much one may turn this key, it unlocks nothing for one but the heart of Prof. Winkler, glowing with hatred. For in the first place Prof. Winkler himself says in the superscription which he has placed over his coat of arms with the two keys, besides that well-known motto: "The Raging" etc., that "Herr A. Crämer appeared in Detroit on the commission of Herr Prof. Walther as advocate of the mob." He thus did not believe himself called, but another regarded him as having the duty to carry out what Prof. Winkler calls the "work of an expulsion." Then it is clear to every unprejudiced reader of the reports that have appeared on the Detroit affair that neither the so-called mob in Detroit, nor Prof. Walther, nor Herr A. Crämer had the expulsion of Herr Prof. Winkler in mind. According to the constitution of the congregation in Detroit, it was open, in case a part of it had a complaint against the pastor, to the one as to the other to choose an impartial third party who should be present at the investigation of such a complaint. Now when Pastor Winkler really gave occasion for just complaints by improper banning and the like, the dissatisfied part of his congregation chose the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri etc. This appointed, through its president, Prof. Walther, Pastor Crämer. All this happened because no man could do otherwise, and not with the intention of offending Pastor Winkler, much less of expelling him, but, as one had to conclude from the congregational order approved by him up to then, with his hearty consent. What can the Synod of Missouri, what can Prof. Walther, its president at that time, what can Pastor Crämer, on whom the lot fell, as plenipotentiary of the Synod, do in Detroit,

†It is surely superfluous to remind the reader that Herr Prof. Winkler says so. He has the habit of adding to what is true at least as much again, and of twisting the whole as he pleases, as one dissolves certain minerals which, if they remain unmixed, resist all attempts to stretch or to melt them, by the addition of other chemical substances, and can then bring them into any form one likes. As to what, for example, has come out of the hands of our chemist and respectable tinsmith, already well known to readers from Cleveland as an anatomist, in the shape described above, there is about so much truth in it. When P. Lochner was preparing for his departure to America, a letter arrived from P. Hattstät in Monroe, in which Pfarrer Löhe was informed that a preacher was being sought in Detroit. Without knowing that in the meantime Herr Prof. Winkler had come to Detroit, Herr Pfarrer Löhe took this news into his Kirchl. Mittheilungen and remarked thereby that P. Lochner would go by way of Detroit.