# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 03 14_S116
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

116

wholly drowned out, he was, like many others whom the Lord preserved for Himself in quietness, kept by God's grace from the worst dangers to the soul. Childlike faith in his God and Saviour Jesus Christ and daily prayer to Him, a deeply felt knowledge that he could "come happily through this life only under his Saviour's strong and high hand," and hearty confidence in Him lived in his soul from early on as the fruit of a pious upbringing. Originally destined for the merchant's calling, in which he also spent three years, he had been brought back by an unconquerable inclination to the studies of the scholarly career, and, equipped with solid knowledge, after he had attended the learned schools at Ratzeburg and afterward that at Ilfeld, he was able in the year 1812 to enter the University of Göttingen. Yet his first intention was by no means directed to theology. Natural inclination and endowment pointed him rather to the study of philology and the sciences of antiquity, while theology, with the Rationalism then prevailing in it, was bound to have for him something rather repellent than attractive, and also in the first years of his university study remained wholly remote from him. By chance a volume of Luther's works fell into his hands, and the words of the German Reformer, whom he had not known before, penetrated deep into his soul; he could not tear himself from them. The image of the dear German man of God drew him mightily, whom he himself has described as "a man of iron and steel in the struggle, full of humility toward God, full of fear before God, submissive to all divine and human order, full of love and fervor, full of fidelity and goodness, full of devotion and self-sacrifice, earnest and yet cheerful, zealous and yet sober-minded, active and never vexed, manly and yet childlike in all the circumstances of his life." That movement gave the young Catenhusen the decision for his calling and his future life; it awakened in him the resolve, to which God's grace also helped him to the accomplishment, to place his life in the same fidelity and the same obedience at the service of the Word of God; at the same time it gives the explanation of the sense in which he now studied theology and how he came to the theological direction which he consistently followed throughout his whole life. His motto from the first was: "A theologian must learn everything, know everything, but believe only what endures the touchstone of the divine Word." To be sure, there remained to him at the university only a short time for the study of theology, for he left it already in 1815, and already a year later, in 1816, he was called into office as second preacher of the town of Lauenburg; but all the more is the zeal and iron diligence to be admired with which he studied theology and soon attained to considerable learning in it (his thorough knowledge of Hebrew in particular he had acquired only in office). Above all he turned his whole strength upon the study of the Holy Scripture in the original languages, then upon the old Church Fathers, the writings of Luther and of the age of the Reformation. For it concerned him, whatever the general opinions of his time might be, above all to recognize the eternal truth, exalted above all change of times, and to attain a quite sure knowledge of that which the faith and doctrine of the holy Apostles and of all orthodox Christians who ever lived has been; and there he must soon see himself, away from the theology of his time, which so readily showed itself to be one departing from God's Word, referred wholly to the earlier times; and so it is not to be wondered at that he sought, with quite decided preference, to study and live himself into the old Fathers and especially Luther. With great sympathy he watched the new wrestling and working of the minds which had awakened in the last decades in German evangelical theology, and with all the more heartfelt joy he greeted the newly stirring life, the more it inclined again toward the old eternal Gospel and the faith of the Fathers; but never, not even amid the newest events and turns in theology, did the right sobriety forsake him, with which his eye, sharpened by God's Word, knew how to separate error from truth even in the believing and churchly theology of the modern age. He recognized that we Lutheran Christians in this time have to contend especially also against modern credulity for hearth and altar, and that the strife is not about single points of doctrine, but about principles (fundamentals). Therefore, as his most grievous lament was: "God's Word and faith have departed from our German fatherland; Luther, though known to all by name, is yet known by few according to his spirit and his nature!"—so the sum of his theological conviction was this: "We must go back up to Luther!"
(Conclusion to follow.)

(Communicated.)

The Emigration
of the Evangelical Lutheran Salzburgers
in the Years 1731, 32 and 33.
(Continuation)

Soon after the occurrence already related, still in the autumn of 1731, the auxiliary troops requested of the Emperor arrived. Six thousand men of infantry and cavalry streamed into the land and pressed in everywhere, even into the most forgotten hiding-places. Now the torment and suffering reached a monstrous height.

The soldiers quartered themselves in the Lutheran houses, kept house there with cursing and raging, ate up the best provisions of the well-to-do and the last bread of the poor, broke open chests and cupboards and plundered, tracked down any hidden treasures and robbed, and even the honor of wives and maidens was not safe from their insolence.

If one considers now that the soldiers of that time were not only much rougher and more violent than today, but also that these here were under the delusion that God took pleasure in the misery of those fallen away from the Catholic Church, then the misery of our poor fellow-believers must appear exceedingly great. It is therefore easily conceived that by this they were for the most part brought to beggary. And nevertheless they were to pay their taxes and dues. If they now lacked the means, the officials and bailiffs came, seized their lands, took away their cattle and their household goods; yea, more than once an old man, a sick man, was thrown out of his last earthly comfort, his poor bed, with which the authorities paid themselves.

But "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. 10). By His wonderful governance He ordained that to His own the days of tribulation were eased, yea shortened, and that just through a part of the soldiers summoned as their oppressors and tormentors. Surely the reader will not be able to hear of it without emotion.

For among the imperial soldiers the dragoon regiment "Prince Eugene" had marched in, which must have been recruited for the most part in Protestant regions, for the majority of these dragoons consisted of Lutherans. Of that, to be sure, the Viennese had not thought, and the Archbishop too had not asked the soldiers about their faith. These Lutheran dragoons now, however wild and terrible they might be against armed enemies, had no desire at all to do woe to a defenseless people, all the less to a people which confessed their own faith and for the sake of it was already treated mercilessly enough. Rather they took the part of the unfortunate secretly, as well as they could. Those who were instructed would even often sit down at night in the midst of the families, read to them a portion of the Holy Scripture, where one was still saved, and expounded it with hearty zeal, or otherwise held edifying conversations with them, to instruct them about the ways of God and to refresh and raise up their faint heart. Yea, many a fearsome, bearded rider would set the children around him there, take a smaller one upon his lap, and go through the Lutheran catechism with them. And the little ones, who at first had looked shyly at the man with the sword and his dreadful beard, soon perceived that he must have a milder heart than the sneaking Jesuit, nestled with confidence about his knees and against his breast, and let themselves be schoolmastered by him with childlike delight. It must also be said to the credit of the Catholic dragoons that, after the example of their Lutheran comrades, they were ashamed to wage war upon the unarmed and likewise behaved decently.