# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 10 25_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

35

always to spend the time in trying to uncover offenses of our Christians that occur now and then. All this, whether much or little truth lay in it, gave me occasion to let the funeral sermon be a serious penitential sermon, and the faithful God gave me grace that I could set before them with all joyfulness and fearlessness the earnestness of God's chastisement. Naturally I had in view much rather the sin of drinking and revelry, to which some of the relatives of this child were addicted, than the alleged sin which the afflicted mother was supposed to have committed by picking berries on Sunday. The Methodists were for the most part present at the burial, and their preachers also were not missing. Their mouth is now stopped, and as far as we men can see, the affliction has left among the relatives of the drowned child a peaceable fruit of righteousness.

A new, unexpected joy the Lord prepared for us yesterday, the 14th Sunday after Trinity. A little Indian boy, about 7 years old, cast out by his mother, was brought to Bethany to his grandparents, who likewise are still hardened heathen. But the boy was not to have come among us in vain. He came to us now and then, kept company with our boys, begged himself a piece of bread now and again, and by degrees grew so used to our house that he was nowhere more gladly than with us. Since he had also heard that one must let oneself be baptized if one would be saved, he said to me one day: "You Blackcoat," (so they call their pastors) "ask my grandfather whether I too may be baptized." Last Saturday his grandmother came to me, and I told her what the boy had charged me with; she said her husband was not at home, but would soon return. Yesterday, then, on the day mentioned, the woman came to church with some of her household. I was preaching just then on the Gospel of the ten lepers, and, pointing to the truth that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, I spoke of the importance of calling upon the name of the Lord, because He is near to us. Just as I was speaking of the right time of calling, these people entered the church, and I did not suspect what they wanted. After the service was closed and I had already left the church, the baptism of the child mentioned above was announced to me. They wished it to take place the same day. I spoke with them about it, and since I found that nothing hindering stood in the way, I appointed the baptism for the afternoon. To the question whether we should not rather wait until the boy's grandfather came home, the woman said the boy had been given over to her, she had to decide about it, and moreover she knew that her husband had nothing against it if he were baptized. Now the mother came to my mind. I asked whether we ought not first to obtain her consent. Then the boy said in his childlike simplicity: "My mother has forsaken me and troubles herself no more about me, and if I should go there, she will have me baptized by the Catholics." With joy we received this unexpected gift of God and admitted him in the afternoon to holy Baptism. He received the name Theodor (that is, God's gift); who doubts that it was a gift of God that was given us in him! Fittingly should we praise and extol the Lord unceasingly for such grace and faithfulness, for such rich gifts.

On the whole we can give almost all members of our congregation the good testimony that they love God's Word and also gladly hear and learn. The church is attended regularly by most, and they also show themselves more and more in their ordinary life as Christians who follow their Lord. To be sure there are also many sick and weak among them, and of some we must sadly say, they sleep; they sleep the sleep of sin. May the Lord yet once more let His Word become mighty also upon them, and convert them from the error of their way. For the present I can also report to you that the chief, with the consent of his wife, both of whom belong to the Methodists, and of whom the wife especially was formerly our worst adversary, is sending his eldest daughter to me for instruction. Since it is left to the girl, according to Indian custom, to choose after the instruction received whither she will belong in future: whether to us or to his church (the Methodists), I hope that she may soon be received into our church, the more since the girl wishes it from the heart. May the Lord let it come to pass to the honor of His holy name and to the spite of the devil and his servants.

The school has been little attended for some weeks, since most of our Indians were away; now they are beginning again to gather more about us. Brother Röder has the boys and I the girls. This division, which did not take place earlier, has come about as of itself. I had, namely, for a time two girls, the daughter of our interpreter and the daughter of an English man who belongs to our church. Besides these, some young Indian women presented themselves, to whom I gave instruction in Indian, and who would not otherwise have come to school. Since I had now to give these Indian women who had joined, besides the English, also Indian instruction, I took in only later the one girl who was otherwise still in the school from Röder's class. In this way a division of the school has come about such as I have long wished.

Since I have entered more into the grammatical structure of the language, I have made not only great discoveries for facilitating the learning of it, but also considerable progress in the language itself. Since the lexicon is almost finished, I am now occupied in part with the preparation of a grammar. I find in the structure of the language, on a closer examination of the forms, so striking a likeness to the Hebrew language that I can work out the grammar after the model of my Hebrew one and thereby procure considerable facilities for myself. Later I will report once more more exactly about the language.

(Submitted.)
Church Dedication.

Only recently our dear fellow believers received news of three church dedications here in the East of America. Already again a new church here is ready for use and dedicated to the service of our God. On the 17th Sunday after Trinity, September 18, 1853, our new St. Peter's Church in Hartford Co., in the State of Maryland, was namely dedicated. It is a frame building 41 feet long and 22 feet wide, with a sacristy built on directly and quite suitably. For 6 years less about 2 months God's Word has been proclaimed in that region. Much enmity and denial has the dear Gospel and the Lutheran little flock there had to endure during this time. Now at last, with much toil and labor which only few could undertake, through the help of God and the love and assistance of our dear sister congregation at Baltimore, — which we do not wish to refrain from repeatedly expressing here with heartfelt thanks to God and to the same — it has come to this, that we can now hold divine service in our church.

On the day named, so festive for us, which was favored with fine weather, very many guests had come from Baltimore, about 24 miles distant, and almost the whole congregation from Franklinville with Jericho, about 13 miles away, as well as some members of the Long Green congregation, and increased our joy. The order of the celebration and of the service was quite similar to that followed at the church dedication at Washington City last year — see Lutheraner, Vol. 9, No. 11. —, only with the alteration that we could hold divine service only once, and abridged even this somewhat. So fine as it was in Washington, it seldom happens at church dedications that all churchly acts which are to be performed at all and for the future in the new church (as confession, Gospel sermon, celebration of the Holy Supper, catechism exercise, wedding and baptism with singing and prayer) could also be performed in the new house of God on the day of dedication. Yet it ought to occur on this occasion, where possible, always; for by this, that these acts take place in the place, and