# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 03 28_S122
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

122

was indeed against conscience to set up a new congregation here in Fort Wayne. Although this declaration gave us hope that his previous conduct had proceeded more from fanatical folly than from evil will, we were nevertheless not a little struck by a boastful bragging of Mr. Strauß, in that he said to us in passing: "he had preached the Gospel in all oriental languages."

Strauß was also repeatedly admonished earnestly and brotherly, and warned, by that student Lemke mentioned above, who had studied with him in Columbus, by all means not to engage in Fort Wayne in the setting up of an opposition congregation; and since here also his understanding and conscience were convinced of the injustice of such an undertaking, he promised here also not to do it.

But the one who kept his word neither to this his then friend nor to me was Mr. Strauß. With no single complainant did he come to me, in order to have it out face to face with him and me, the accused; and supposing that none of these people had been willing to come with him to me, it would still have been his duty to tell me, that I might have gone with him to the complainant. On the contrary, he found it not against his conscience to play the spiritual demagogue anew, and after a German sermon in the English Lutheran church to utter all manner of hypocritical declamations also against the discontented, as for example "he would rather eat bread and salt with those whom P. Sihler had treated unjustly than forsake them."

He also let it pass without contradiction that some of his already won adherents ran about, partly among notorious drunkards and churchless rationalists, partly among still ignorant communicants of my congregation who were ill-disposed toward me on account of rebuking sermons, church discipline, and announcement for confession, in order to bring together their signatures for the formation of a so-called Lutheran congregation and for the calling of Mr. Strauß, which indeed also succeeded.

This whole unsound manner of acting on the part of Mr. Strauß, who was now hardly any longer caught in fanatical folly, moved the student Köstering, who knew Strauß from Germany and had come across the sea with him, to break his previous silence and to inform me that Strauß, as assistant of P. Gräber in Meiderich near Duisburg, in the service of the so-called inner mission, had embezzled mission funds, had also otherwise behaved very unsoundly and mendaciously, and had been sent away by P. Gräber, since the latter could not gain the conviction that Strauß had done repentance sincerely, and also because his unchristian conduct in the congregation had already given too great offense; he himself, Köstering, must unfortunately confess with shame that in his former fanatical pietism he had given more credence to the feigned protestations of repentance of Strauß than to the judgment of P. Gräber; but since Strauß now acted thus, he would be revealed as an impenitent hypocrite and he might not and would not any longer cover his former sin.

I now asked Mr. Köstering, who had besides always appeared to us as an open and upright character, upon his conscience, whether in case of need he could prove this charge against Mr. Strauß also by irrefutable testimonies from Germany, and since he affirmed this, I declared that I would make this his communication known publicly after the Sunday service to my congregation and to all other hearers, so that the moral depravity of the person of Strauß might frighten off from him those who did not see the injustice of the cause, that is, of the formation of this so-called new Lutheran congregation.

Before this publication took place, however, Mr. Köstering went out once more to Strauß, begged him in the most earnest manner to desist from his work of injustice, and finally did not conceal from him what awaited him if he persisted in his evil way, namely, that his shame would be made manifest.

But this warning also was in vain; and since Mr. Köstering reported to me the fruitlessness of his effort, there followed the public announcement and warning against this man, together with an instruction out of and according to GOD's Word, partly on the contrariety to Scripture and injustice of the cause which Strauß had taken in hand, partly on the reprehensibleness of the proceeding, how he had gone to work in it, partly on his moral unfitness in general, on the ground of 1 Tim. 3. 7.

I hope no sensible and conscientious reader of the Lutheraner will disapprove that I did not cover up what God uncovered; for this publication was required partly by the honor of God, whose holy name was so much dishonored and abused in this work of darkness; partly by my own conscience, which I would have necessarily wounded by cowardly and fleshly sparing of this man, who had been sufficiently informed and admonished and yet persisted in his wickedness, harmful to himself and to others; partly by love of the neighbor, in order at least to warn simple and upright people against his hypocritical and flattering arts, or to tear them out of his net of lies and to make clear to them, besides the injustice of the cause, also the reprehensibleness of the person and his contradiction to 1 Tim. 3, 2. 7; 4, 12 and Tit. 1, 6 — 8; partly, finally, by the soul of this man so miserably seduced by the devil, to whose growing ruin I had contributed by silence and had deprived him of the opportunity, if God were willing, of penitent conversion.

Since it was much to my concern to obtain from Germany itself documentary testimony as to the life and character of this proselyte, I wrote, in company with Pastor Husmann, to P. Gräber at Meiderich near Duisburg in Rhenish Prussia, with whom Strauß had been assistant in the service of the so-called "inner mission" before his removal to America, and begged him, making known to him at the same time the motives of our request and the present state of affairs in our relation to Strauß — a letter which, written without all personal irritation, contains essentially the same as what I wrote to Professor Lehmann, the president, a copy of which lies at any time open to inspection of the Synod of Ohio.

Some months afterward we received also an answer drawn up by P. Gräber and signed by him and P. Dr. Wortmann, superintendent of the district synod of Duisburg, and attested by two official seals, from which, to our horror, an even greater moral depravity, and in particular a man thoroughly eaten through by the spirit of lies, became manifest in the proselyte A. Strauß. Since, however, this answer is too long to be taken up here word for word, only the most important may be cited here.

The two P. P. confirm first, concerning which we had also especially inquired, that Strauß had indeed applied for himself the gifts collected at the Bible hours for the poor, but had asserted that he had also given of his own to the poor. — "Incidentally" — so the writer, Mr. P. Gräber, continues — "I lay no great weight upon this point. But as to his mendacious character, it is terrible beyond measure, so that it has often filled me with horror. Thus, for example, Strauß had told us: 'he was 31 years old, had been a rabbi 10 years, had made a journey to Jerusalem, had in fact a fortune of 200,000 guilders; his father, however, had disinherited him in his testament on account of his Christianity; now the matter of his fortune was still in process at law; the testament was in the hands of his friends in Frankfurt; he had a rich brother, a rabbi in Brussels, and a very wealthy and charitable sister; he was persecuted by the Jews on account of his Christianity, very severely maltreated bodily, from which he had been dangerously ill a long time, and to withdraw him from these persecutions they had sent him to Duisburg,' etc.

When Mr. P. Gräber now obtained information about this from the Jewish missionary Poper in Frankfurt, who had instructed Strauß, these assertions proved to be lies, and Mr. P. Gräber continues thus: "What has been communicated is more than sufficient to document the bottomless lies of Strauß as such. What has been communicated is only a little, both of the multitude of his lies and of the greatness of them