# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 12 20_S70
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

70

Go, hang the harp upon the willows:
Is there a sorrow like our sorrow?
When I behold our Church's sufferings,
My troubled heart is moved.
Ah! our walls lie low,
And our halls are destroyed,
The songs of Zion's joy are silent,
And our vineyard is laid waste.

For the Confession, which like walls,
Founded upon God's eternal Word,
Against all enemies' crafty lurking
Has so long protected the holy fortress,
And whose glory-crowned battlements
The never-conquered banner adorns:
That is, with wanton enterprise,
Shattered by Lutherans themselves.

But see! what threatens Zion's towers
There, a dark and fearful host,
Ready to storm the holy fortress,
Clothed in dreadful armor?
What rages there out of the abysses of hell,
A stream pregnant with destruction?
It is the Pope, the man of sin,
It is the Antichrist of Rome.

And what are those grim enemies there,
Inflamed by hell's fire,
Who thus revile the LORD and the congregation
Full of hatred and rage,
Who mock at everything holy,
Rise up against Christ?
They are the bands of God-deniers,
It is the rude rabble of scoffers.

So Satan storms ever onward
Upon our dear Zion.
And alas! few are the fighters
Who cry out against these abominations.
Few faithful are to be seen
Who stand bravely at the breach,
And zealously build Zion's walls,
And fervently implore God for her.

And these few the multitude mocks:
"You are too strict in your discipline;
You are too severe in your doctrine,
And suffer from a mania for damning.
You do not let love rule,
And stand too firm on your own mind;
You want to hold only yourselves for Christians,
And cast away all others."

Yet should I therefore leave the Church,
Because her host of fighters is so small,
And many hate her without cause,
As once they did the Saviour? Never!
Jerusalem! if I forget thee,
I will bear all pain:
Let the LORD then forget me also,
If thou be not my highest joy.

O evangelical Lutheran Zion!
Thou standest on God's pure Word:
Therefore, despite need and death, depart not from it,
Go on joyfully in confessing!
Thy LORD has mightily overcome
World, devil, hell in the holy war:
If thou art found faithful in faith,
The eternal victory is certain to thee.

Herrmann Fick.

News of the World.

The long-threatening war between the Russians and Turks has actually broken out. Sultan Abdul Medjid, pressed to peaceful measures by the envoys of France, England and especially Austria, had only just ordered the commander-in-chief of his troops, Omar Pasha, not to attack the Russians, if it had not already happened, but it was too late; the Turks had already fired upon some Russian ships which ventured to sail up the Danube. On the 4th of November the Turks crossed the Danube at Kalafat and advanced into Wallachia toward Oltenitza, where the Russian Gortschakoff awaited them. Beaten in two battles, on the 5th and on the 11th of November, Gortschakoff saw himself compelled to withdraw to Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia. On the 12th of November, however, Omar Pasha himself withdrew again, leaving only a strong garrison in Kalafat and gathering his remaining troops again on the Turkish side of the Danube. It appears as if the approaching winter will probably hinder the two contending parties from continuing the war, since, for example, the Russians are bringing the one main part of their fleet into the harbors to winter. Moreover, the Russians are also beaten in the Caucasus, where for years they have been fighting with the Circassians, and seem on the whole not to be in the best condition with their armies. With the many uncertain reports about the plans of the Russian Emperor Nicholas, who is said to incite the peoples dwelling north of the English possessions in the East Indies to war against England, I will not weary the patience of our readers, but I do call upon all dear Christians and fellow believers to pray that our Lord God keep the war far from our German fatherland. The Russian Emperor is already highly enraged at England and especially France, because they have laid their war fleets at the entrance of the Black Sea before Constantinople, in order to preserve Turkey if the Russian should press forward victoriously. Moreover, Austria is friendly with Russia, and has therefore already been warned by France not to take in Russian refugees. Should the threats which have been exchanged up to now between Russia on the one hand and England and France on the other lead to war, God forbid, the battles, as for such a long time customary, would take place in Germany, since Prussia too could hardly remain neutral. But consider, dear brethren, what would become of the young seed of Christian faith and life now just springing up in Germany, if the dreadful war should break out there! To the merciful God may our dear German fatherland be commended in grace.

From China the news will probably soon arrive that the capital Peking has been taken by the rebels; much blood flows there, not so much in the battles, for the Chinese commonly run away soon, but when the rebels have taken a place, they murder all the officials and notables. Remarkable soldiers these: every Chinese soldier needs some servants to carry his baggage after him, and especially one who holds a parasol over his head; his gun he lays on the shoulder of such a one, then turns his face away carefully and fires, they do not like to smell powder.

On the 5th of December Congress assembled in Washington, and on the 6th President Pierce delivered his message, in which he shows how it stands with our country and by what principles he administers his office and intends to administer it further. Very sensibly he speaks above all about all sorts of great plans, to the adoption of which the speculators would only too gladly move Congress, namely about the construction of a railroad right across the United States to California; if the President's counsel is followed, the Government will afford all help to that undertaking, but leave the matter itself to private persons.

The United States Government has made a great deal of money in the past year, now has over 32 million dollars surplus lying by, has paid off nearly 13 million dollars of debts and owes only about 57 million. This is indeed very gratifying, and when the President writes that we have every reason to thank God for the grace and benefit which He has caused to be given us also in the past year, he writes it truly with right. But when the Americans conclude from this surplus of 32 million that it stands so much better with the people and land here than with the European states, among which some act every year like the Schildburgers, when they had dug a deep well (the clever Schildburgers, compelled to carry away the dug-out earth, dug a still deeper well beside it and carried the earth into it); when the Americans judge their people's condition by the mass of dollars that are made, they err not only in that, but bring their own people and land even into danger. For they lead the people on in this way to hold mammon for the best and highest treasure, and to direct all their striving and endeavor to the acquiring of it: in short, they seduce the inhabitants of this country to covetousness, the root of all evil, and plant a low, mean mind in their hearts. Most of the newspapers here are now almost so far that they teach without concealment that making money is after all the most important and necessary pursuit of the whole life, and President Pierce will be heard by only a few when in his message he expresses the conviction that we cannot rely on any apparent progress unless it be borne by a national uprightness resting on the high truths of divine revelation. With the usual reasoning of so-called sound human understanding one can prove everything, even the worst, make sweet sour and sour sweet; so the true opposite of all uprightness, covetousness and greed, can also be proved useful, so that the wicked heart grasps at it with right joy. May God preserve all inhabitants of this country, and especially the Germans, from the dreadful temptation to esteem money and goods as the highest and most important treasures