# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 11 09_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

42

§13. In the quarterly meeting after this festival, that is, on the Sunday after Michaelmas, the chairman presents an annual report and the treasurer the annual account.

Chapter 4.

Duties of the Officers and Members.

§14. The chairman has to conduct the meeting, to give the annual report every time on the Sunday after Michaelmas, and to oversee the official duties of the other officers.

§15. The deputy of the chairman takes over his business when the latter is prevented.

§16. The secretary has to keep the minutes in the meetings. He has further to keep the archives of the society and all its documents relating to the society. He has to keep a list of the members of the society.

§17. The agent [treasurer] manages the buying and selling of Bibles, takes care that the necessary supply of them is always on hand in the storeroom. He has at the same time the treasury of the society, administers it and renders account quarterly. As to the general meeting see §13.

§18. To the agent there are assigned, for the city of St. Louis, as sellers of the Bibles, four commissioners, of whom two live in the upper, two in the lower part of the city. They manage the retail sale, are responsible to the agent, and have to hand over to him monthly the proceeds from the sale.

§19. The four collectors appointed for the receiving of the regular contributions, of whom two live in the upper, two in the lower part of the city, have to collect the regular contributions from the members of the society and hand them over monthly to the treasurer.

§20. All officers of the society are responsible to it for their official acts.

§21. Every member of the society, where in his circle he comes to know of the lack of a Bible, is to take care as far as possible that this need be relieved.

Chapter 5.

Management of the Society's Business.

§22. The society sells the Bibles at the purchase price with the sole addition of the cost of transport and packing. For the conscientious observance of this principle the agent of the society is responsible.

§23. Only to the manifestly poor are Bibles given as a gift by way of exception or sold at a reduced price. How many copies in the course of a quarter may be given away, and how many sold at reduced prices, the chairman determines with the agent. In individual cases the agent decides whether a copy may be let go to a person without charge, or at reduced prices.

§24. The society is ready to supply reliable colporteurs, who devote themselves to the spreading of the Holy Scripture, with Bibles on credit.

§25. There shall be a treasury consisting of the regular and the voluntary extra contributions. These are to be used so that the society may always have a supply of Bibles corresponding to the need, that it may further, according to circumstances, give away a certain number of Bibles, and sell others at a reduced price, and, if possible, be in a position some day itself to undertake a correct and complete printing of the Bible.

Chapter 6.

Connection of the Society with Branch Societies.

§26. Although the society is ready also to supply independent societies within and without the limits of its sphere of activity with Bibles at their request, yet it regards it as its task to cause and promote, within the above-named limits, the formation of branch societies.

§27. Only such outside societies can be regarded as branch societies as have properly constituted themselves by the election of a chairman, secretary and treasurer, and whose constitution is not in contradiction with that of the Central Society. Societies which wish to be received as branch societies are to send their constitution together with the names of their officers to the president of the Central Society. Their admission takes place in the quarterly meetings.

§28. The members of the branch societies enjoy equal advantages with those of the Central Society. The money collected for the society the treasurer has to send to the administration of the Central Society.

(Sent in for the "Lutheraner.")

What Does Dr. Luther Teach about Dancing?

Those who appeal to Dr. Luther in defense of worldly dancing cite for this purpose especially the following passage, which is to them a true gospel or right glad tidings, that they can now dance away merrily, which they therefore have unceasingly in their mouths, with which they fiddle merrily to the dance, like a minstrel on a string, which they write on their banner as a watchword and, waving it in triumph, cry: Behold, you Lutherans, what a man our Luther is, what a beneficial influence his doctrine has on the cheerful shaping of social life! Therefore let us follow the great Reformer in this also, and give again its place in civil society to the noble pleasure of dancing, which is also an achievement of the Reformation, from which the delusion of narrow-hearted priests has shamefully driven it, who indeed make much talk and boasting of Luther, but who are not able to grasp him in his whole greatness and especially as a man of the people, yes, who even intentionally withhold such passages from the people, in order thereby to keep it in its stupidity also in this respect.

Which now is the passage to which these good people especially appeal? It stands in Luther's Kirchenpostille in the sermon on the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany and reads word for word thus:

Whether it be also a sin, piping and dancing at a wedding, seeing that men say that many sins come from the dance? Whether there were dances among the Jews I know not; but since it is the custom of the country, like inviting guests, adorning, eating and drinking and being merry, I know not how to condemn it, except the excess, if it be unchaste or too much. But that sins happen there is not the fault of the dance alone, seeing that also at table and in the churches the like happens; just as it is not the fault of eating and drinking that some become swine thereby. But where it goes on decently, I leave to the wedding its right and custom and dance on. Faith and love let themselves not be danced out nor sat out, if thou art decent and temperate therein. The young children dance indeed without sin; do thou also so and become a child, then the dance will not harm thee. Otherwise, if dancing were in itself a sin, one must not permit it to the children.

In the first place one must now ask, against whom Luther here takes dancing in general under his protection, whom he means, when he says at the very beginning: "seeing that men say." This thou canst find thyself, dear reader, shortly before the above passage, where it says: "That in this (in the fare and manner of the wedding) no one should turn aside for the sour-looking hypocrites and self-grown saints, who are pleased with nothing but what they themselves do and teach, and who would not willingly suffer that a maid wear a garland and adorn herself a little." Consequently Luther here takes the dance under his protection not for the justification of the dance-loving and wanton people, but against the sour-looking hypocrites and self-grown saints of that day and this, as if one should take under protection the enjoyment of spirituous drinks in itself against the condemnatory judgments of the temperance men, whereby, however, one would be far from becoming an advocate of drunkards and of those who help thereto.

In the second place Luther speaks of dancing in itself (and indeed first at weddings), although he does not entirely acquit it of occasion to the sins which take place there, in that he says: "that sins happen there is not the fault of the dance alone, etc." As proof that dancing in itself, that is, hopping and skipping, is not sin, he brings forward