# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 11 09_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

45

all fellowship of Christians proceeding solely and alone from the pure preaching of the Word and from faith in that preaching: Large Catechism, Luth. Part 2, Art. 3. "For where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Ghost who makes, calls and gathers together the Christian Church, outside of which no one can come to the Lord Christ." Everything, therefore, that would set itself as a form of existence on one line with the doctrine of faith, or would be something in itself, everything that is supposed to have in itself, as a form of common life, a life-giving, church-building power, indeed everything in the Church that does not give unconditionally the sole honor to faith and its preaching, as though it were able, through the Holy Ghost, to work life, she must reject as obscuring the Gospel and the honor of Christ, as running against her holiest jewel, as unlutheran and destructive of churches, however smooth and precisely articulated the form may otherwise be. Herein precisely the Lutheran Church differs from the Catholic, which places the saving and life-working power in the outward institution of the Church.

Past. Althaus in Celle.

Now that the age has set its wisdom above God's Word and has mastered the Creator, by whose grace it lives, it would also prove thereby how deeply Satan's lie, "ye shall be as God," clings to it, in that, as it has hitherto affected divine wisdom, so now it affects divine power; it begins, namely, to create. Yet it first makes itself a way and does away with what is, that it may one day make something out of nothing. Since, however, until the last day it will at the very least still retain heaven and earth of the old creation, it will probably be only then that its boasting will cease. Until then it has the advantage that it can meet all objections against its creative omnipotence with the bold pretext: Everything will be found when once I shall have uprooted everything stump and stem: the Nothing must be restored, until I can prove that my art is greater than the might of the old LORD of Sabaoth!

R.

The cross is an opened window of heaven, which brings God's pure breath and fresh air into the pressed rooms full of earthly vapor.

R.

King August is said to have been so strong that he could squeeze a silver drinking vessel together in his hand in a moment, and then the wine spurted up to the ceiling. Often the Lord Christ would in this respect be comparable to such a Samson. What does He want otherwise than to make the wine of God's Word swing the higher, when the vessels in which He offers it run hard against one another? Also your soul, which would have remained hanging in the costly cup out of which you drank the sweet wine of the Gospel, is only to be lifted up to heaven; for that reason the LORD has it pressed so.

R.

From a Letter

of the Baden Lutheran Pastor Eichhorn, persecuted by the Unionists, to the editor of the Stade Sonntagsblatt.

Dear Brother in the Lord!

— — If you read in the public papers that the granting of free exercise of religion and my release from this heavy and sad banishment are near at hand, do not believe it. Humanly speaking, there is no prospect of it at all. An audience which a deputation from our congregations obtained at the end of January of this year with our Regent, after many long fruitless attempts and humiliations, has had a sad outcome. Our Prince-Regent urged these men several times to return with their people to the Union, and when they remained unshakably firm and steadfast, he had them withdraw at once in anger. "We go in the name of God," they said as they went away.—In the most recent days the same men again handed in an urgent petition to our all-ruling Minister, Herr von Marschall. Concerning this audience the following has just been reported to me by letter: "The Minister was harsh and scornful and refused everything, everything, even mocking, saying besides: 'I tolerate you, to be sure:—but the children you must have baptized and instructed in the Union church; the Lord's Supper you must take in the Union church; but you may believe what you will, and if it does not please you, you may go!' Pastor Eichhorn's best friends (!!), the clergy of the Union, have all come to me and have begged me not to permit you any clergyman at all!— If Turks were to come into the country today, I would not build them a mosque either. I too am a Lutheran! Ah, these little differences in the Lord's Supper, what are they?' R. took to begging that we might at least at Easter receive the holy Supper through our Pastor Eichhorn, whereupon the Minister said 'no!' several times: 'I will not do it! I cannot and will not do it!'—Then C. said further: 'It is dreadful that you (Past. Eichhorn), who in the year 1849, out of unshakable attachment to the Grand Duke, came into severe imprisonment of several weeks, are now, for the sake of your faith, held in severe banishment by the Grand Duke's government,' whereupon the Minister answered: 'Pastor Eichhorn is a fanatic.' Yes, the Minister even said to the men that if they were willing to become Catholic, he would have nothing against it. — When F. said that he surely did not mean to drive the Lutherans out of the land, by not even granting them toleration, he said: 'I do not drive you out! Only go back into the Union church!'" — —

You see, beloved brother in the Lord, that from our authorities we have for the present no concession to expect, and that a heavy pressure still lies upon us! Yet to my joy and uplifting it is written to me: "All three deputies said: they felt themselves newly strengthened, for they had seen anew on what weak feet the cause of the Union stands, and with what unworthy weapons its clergy occupy themselves. Now they wanted to fight all the more and to make petitions again and again; this they also said to the Minister on leaving: they would not desist, and would keep coming again. But what is to become of the poor congregations, what is to become of the children, if they are to go without the preaching of the Word and the strengthening of the Lord's Supper any longer? I hurried here from Rade with the joyful hope of being able to visit the suffering ones once more over Easter and to call out to them: Fear not, the Lord is risen indeed! He lives; He reigns; He protects; He speaks, and it is done. But now I am again more sharply watched and see for the present no possibility of reaching them. Baptisms are at hand. The parents do not want the emergency baptism performed, for they have, as they say, their lawfully called pastor, who is unjustly withheld from them. Also our distress is to become ever more manifest, and our government must in the end itself fall into embarrassment over the fact that it suppresses and seeks to destroy, in so almost unheard-of a manner, a Church solemnly recognized in Germany and publicly received, the blessing and the only remaining anchor of rescue of the German people. I shall seek at any price to perform the baptisms myself in the very nearest time; but then I shall probably have to expect a new, still heavier and longer, and indeed my fifth imprisonment! . . .

In January the "confidential inquiry" of His Majesty the King of Prussia came to me: whether I might be inclined to enter the Prussian Union as a pastor? I answered at once that I was indeed a loyal subject of His Majesty, but did not venture to be a faithful servant of the Union national church. How that inquiry became public, I do not know.—

With hearty esteem and love, your brother united with you in the Lord

Eichhorn, Pfarrer.

Kembach near Werthheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden, the 26th of March 1853.