# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 03 28_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pass away now and nevermore." (Rev. John, Chap. 14, v. 6. 7.)

Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Year 10.  St. Louis, Mo., March 28, 1854.  No. 16.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers at a distance, who are to pay it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents.
Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be addressed to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Dr. and Prof. Sihler.)

The Reverend Ministerium of the Lutheran Synod of Ohio, Western District.

About 1½ years ago certain complaints of some members of the congregation of Pastor Husmann reached the then president of the Western District Synod of Ohio, Prof. Lehmann, through the English Lutheran pastor of this place, and the complainants at the same time asked him for a pastor. He then, without either consulting Pastor Husmann by letter about it or notifying the president of our Synod of it, turned at once to a student of the seminary at Columbus, by the name of Lemcke, and proposed to him to go hither and accept the call from these people. Lemcke, however, whom those alleged complaints at once filled with distrust whether they might be well founded, declined this offer and came rather to the resolution to leave Columbus and to study a while longer at our seminary at Fort Wayne. Thereupon Professor Lehmann made the same proposal to the Jewish proselyte A. Strauß, who had been about a year at the seminary in Columbus, and he accepted it and came hither at once. At the instigation of Pastor Husmann a meeting was now arranged of the complainants, Mr. Strauß, that English Lutheran pastor, and a part of the church council of the Husmann congregation, at which those complaints proved to be altogether void and groundless, false and invented, so that their authors had to fall silent and blush for shame, and Strauß himself, in a seeming zeal for truth and right, flung out the words against those false accusers: "Dear brethren, I must tell you, it was an accursed and damnable factious spirit that drove you." If such words had come from a sincere heart and had been no mere theatrical declamation, Mr. Strauß would naturally not have become further involved with these people, but would rather have admonished them in a Christian manner to beg Pastor Husmann's pardon penitently and to return to the congregation in repentance. Instead, however, he did the opposite and proved by that very act that that aversion to the disposition of these people was pure hypocrisy. For he actually received them as members of the congregation, after he had wormed a call out of some other people who, however, were likewise already in communion at the Lord's Supper with the Husmann congregation. In order, however, to save a kind of outward appearance, he caused those slanderers to go to Pastor Husmann and there make a certain formal apology, after which they were nevertheless to remain his dear parishioners.

Some time afterward it happened that that English Lutheran pastor in Fort Wayne proposed to him, for which he had no right or call, to preach in German in his church, since some of his members who understood the German language wished it, and, as speech-loving Americans and good Athenians, liked to hear something new again. This took place and was repeated several times later, and it took altogether the appearance as if he meant to set up here a kind of opposition congregation.

When I learned of this, I drove out to him with Professor Crämer, and we informed him that it was contrary to GOD's order to set up here in Fort Wayne a kind of rival congregation, since God had established an orthodox ministry here for 16 years and had gathered an orthodox congregation about it, which could only lead to manifold injury and confusion of consciences, since such people would readily flock to him as could not endure the rebuking Word of God and church discipline in our congregation. At the same time I asked him, if people who brought complaints against me came to him, to come with them to me, so that the complaints might be dealt with face to face.

This he promised to do and declared that it