# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 01 31_S94
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

94

Sup. Münchmeyer it was now further reported that several Hanoverians, who had scruples about joining the Gustavus Adolphus Society, but had felt the duty of conscience to do something for the afflicted Lutheran brethren in the Diaspora, had come upon the thought of establishing, as it were, a common chest for them. This plan was found quite worthy of notice, and Prof. D. Kahnis also undertook to communicate about it with the members of the committee of the conference. In the meantime, however, unexpectedly, a written protest was submitted by D. Marbach and Pastor Engel against the preceding resolutions of the conference with regard to the three questions put and answered, laid before it by the American preachers, because a decision had been given on a matter of dispute without a hearing of the other party. They did indeed take this protest into the minutes, but could not convince themselves of its admissibility, since it had been expressly declared that they answered the questions put only in abstracto, without entering upon the controversies obtaining between the two synods themselves or wishing in any way to decide them.

So the conference ended toward 1 o'clock. The verse was yet struck up: "With our own strength nothing is done, etc. etc.," whereupon Professor D. Kahnis closed with an uncommonly fervent prayer.

The Church in Bavaria.

From the 2nd of October of last year the Bavarian General Synod was again assembled, and indeed in the session hall of the royal castle at Bayreuth. As director of the Synod, the Upper Consistorial President Dr. Harleß was present and active. The deputies of the Reformed on this side of the Rhine, who formerly took part in it, were this time excluded from it. The President therefore said with joy that the present Synod was the first of undivided evangelical Lutheran confession, and added: "May God the Lord give His blessing, that we may show ourselves true sons of the Reformation, not in dead, outward imitation, but in spirit and in truth!"

From the report which the Nördlingen "Sonntagsblatt," edited by Pastor Müller at Immeldorf near Ansbach, gives of the proceedings, we now extract the following:

Then he, the President, began with the order of divine service, the necessary improvement of which had been under consideration for thirty years; yet, as it was no doubt wisely so ordained before God, that no seriousness had come of all previous attempts and drafts, because all who were to lay hand to it had first themselves had to learn more with every year, and could learn, if they would; so the General Synod too should not remain behind the progress which had been made in the knowledge of this matter, and everyone should consider that in this he had to regard nothing else than the welfare of the Church, and he therefore begged of them earnestly in two things: first, that they might in no way show themselves too quick to approve something that might later be recognized as untenable, and then, that they also might not, in unconditional rejection and disapproval, pass a resolution which would once more put the longed-for goal into immeasurable distance; and: "May the Lord of the Church Himself guide the hearts!" so he closed.

After this address the deputies went, one after another, to the President and pledged to him by hand, "that they would conscientiously promote the welfare of the evangelical-Lutheran Church on the ground of the existing confession." Thereupon they went in procession to the church. The altar liturgy was held according to the new order of divine service, and President D. Harleß himself delivered the sermon on Matth. 6, 35 — 38, since it happened to be harvest festival. Here he went from the bodily harvest to the spiritual, from the earthly fields and sowers to the heavenly, and so came to the question: When do Christ's servants carry on their work as true followers of Christ? This he answered thus: "When they recognize 1) wherein their essential task consists (namely in healing all manner of sickness and disease by means of the Word) 2) on whom it is to be exercised [namely on the lamentable people, on the scattered and fainting sheep, on their own and strange souls] 3) What promise they have for this task [the promise namely: The harvest is great, wherefore one should not let oneself be discouraged by the sorrowful appearance]; and 4) how this promise must be laid hold of [namely by faithfulness in the calling, as laborers in the harvest, and then by the prayer of faith]. And then at the last he said: We cannot make ourselves fit; the Lord must equip us. No man, no power on earth, no congregation, no church can make the right laborers in Christ's kingdom: God the Lord alone must give them. But what He expects of us, in order to give and to send His laborers, only that does Christ testify in the word: pray ye the Lord of the harvest! O so pray that the LORD, above all, may pour out the spirit of prayer upon us, upon the bearers of the Office, upon the whole congregation and church. "Yea, let us now, in the name of Jesus Christ, already lift up hearts and hands and pray thus from the ground of the soul;" — thereupon came a prayer which rose from thanks for the bread for bodily food to the petition for a right longing after heavenly food: it asked of the Lord, who is the Bread of eternal life, His gifts from on high for those besought, to whom He has commanded to give the bread of life, and begged a blessing for the assembly, that through its service the field of the Lord might be tilled and His kingdom established and increased. — And whoever loves His people and His church, let him say thereto: Amen! Amen! Amen!

At the very beginning of the second session the President had expressed the wish that the prayer at the beginning of each session should not be held, as at the previous Synod, by the individual members in alphabetical order, but that they should come to an understanding among themselves, so that 12 — 14 members should hold the prayers at the beginning and close of the sessions. This wish, however, now brought a far fairer fruit than one could expect; for after a discussion the Synod became of one mind to sing at the beginning of each session the hymn, "Erhalt uns Herr bei deinem Wort," or three verses of: "Ach bleib mit deiner Gnade;" then Prof. Thomasius always reads a short Bible passage, which in form and content bears the character of a prayer, whereupon the assembly prays the Lord's Prayer together aloud. At the close of each session, however, there is sung: "Laß mich dein sein und bleiben," and the blessing is spoken by the President.

On the 13th of October the matter of the hymnal was dealt with. The following are the resolutions: the hymnal draft which has been issued since the last General Synod shall be adopted, yet in such a way that the Eisenach hymnal draft be incorporated into it, so that those hymns of the latter which are still lacking in the Bavarian draft be added to it, the text be once more looked through and improved throughout by the Royal Upper Consistory, and at the same time some forty hymns exchanged for better ones, the chorale book also being brought into conformity with the hymnal thus improved. This work shall be so hastened that the new hymnal can be given to the confirmands of 1853/54. Two kinds of editions shall be prepared, with and without notes, an appendix of prayers and of the complete liturgy, together with the 21 articles of the Augsburg Confession and an abstract of the last 7 articles of the same, being added. It shall be made as cheap as possible and be introduced generally within 3 years at the longest. All this was adopted without dispute, and the session was closed with the hymn "Nun danket alle Gott."

On Friday the 14th of October, in the ninth session, the order and form of the chief divine service were brought up for consultation. On its necessity, content, connection, etc., Prof. Thomasius furnished the General Synod proof in a clear and thorough address, and Pastor Kraußold of Fürth then set forth its practicability and feasibility in liturgical-