# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 03 28_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

124

and accused had stood opposite one another, judge from afar?

2. that therefore the Mr. President cared very little whether Mr. Strauß for 2 months longer served, perhaps, only wilful separatists whom he had drawn to himself with lie and deceit, with Word and Sacrament, and at last administered to such the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, who in opposition to both were, like him, in open rebellion and according to the judgment of the divine Word were already in the secret ban;

3. that the Mr. President harbored an unfounded and unjust doubt against that twofold testimony, furnished with signature and official seal, of the Superintendent P. Wortmann of Duisburg and of P. Gräber against Strauß. And why so? Because he had unfortunately, without a (favorable) testimony of these two men for Strauß, with whom the latter had been last*) before his departure for America in the service of the "inner mission," received him, negligently enough, into the seminary. — And what in all the world was the "mature consideration" of the Synod to accomplish upon this testimony? Could it take anything from its weighty content in favor of the dear brother Strauß? Or could even the most acute of the loving Fathers of the Ohio Synod bring forth from this testimony any objection against the persons and disposition of the two witnesses which would have afforded his dear son, the licentiate Strauß, a welcome hiding-place? — Not so.

*) The Mr. President asserts indeed that he did not receive Strauß without testimonials from Germany, but they were impossibly such as were issued by official persons at his departure from Germany. Earlier ones, however, and besides from private persons, could surely not satisfy his conscience about the moral fitness of Strauß for admission to the seminary. Incidentally it is certain that he received Mr. Köstering into the seminary without any testimonial of conduct.

So little earnestness and zeal for God's honor and the welfare of the church, as has just been shown, this answer of the Mr. President betrayed, and so little hope of a thorough impartial investigation and decision did it contain, yet it pleased him to conclude it with a glittering phrase, which runs thus: "The LORD would enlighten us all in this matter with His Spirit and reveal His counsel, and give us childlike humility, but also joyful courage of faith, that we may forget ourselves therein and seek His honor alone. Amen!"

I call these words a phrase, not in the sense as if the Mr. President had written them in conscious hypocrisy, after nothing factually satisfactory had preceded that gave hope of a Scriptural settlement of the matter, but in the sense that the writer deceives himself therein. For to what end was there in this by no means complicated matter any special enlightenment of the Holy Ghost needed, since it is long since judged by clear passages of Scripture, yes, only a mediocre common understanding of right, with an upright heart and some fear of God, can fully perceive and judge it? What expenditure of "childlike humility, but also joyful courage of faith" was needed here, where it was not a question of fighting a hard battle against devil and world, but merely, on the ground of facts at hand, to pass a just judgment according to God's Word?

The time of the Synod now came near and Mr. Strauß set out on his way, as did also one of the elders†) of his then adherents, a former communicant of my congregation and avowed enemy of announcement for confession, which had helped him, against his then desire and inclination, to somewhat closer knowledge of himself and of his sins.

†) This man, by the way, has for months been clear about the lying character of the Rev. Strauß, as indeed the role of this spiritual play-actor and demagogue is already played out here in the city, and only the people in the country are still, by the just judgment of God, entangled in his net of lies, as in the snares of Satan.

At this Synodal meeting at Lancaster, O., the Strauß affair was indeed taken up, but of the result of this proceeding we complainants, Pastor Husmann and I, were not informed, but waited from week to week in vain for an answer; only this we learned, that His Reverence, Mr. Strauß, had returned from the Synod in perfect good cheer and, as before, was dealing in trickery with the people, and also that no commission had been sent hither on the part of the Synod to investigate the matter on the spot.

Then at last I wrote to the Mr. President and inquired whether our complaint had been dealt with at the Synod and especially whether the testimony against Strauß from Germany had been communicated?

Thereupon I received, under the 6th of August — on the 20th of May and the following days the Synodal meeting had already taken place — from the Secretary of the Synod, Mr. P. Albrecht, the following answer:

"First I have to answer you that your 'Testimony and Complaint,' as also the testimonies of the Superintendent Dr. Wortmann and P. Gräber from Germany, were read both before the committee and in the Ministerial meeting by Prof. Lehmann. And for your further satisfaction I communicate to you the following extract from our Ministerial proceedings upon the point in question:

"Thursday forenoon 8 o'clock"

"The accusations of Messrs. Sihler and Husmann" (pastors we seem therefore not to be in the eyes of the Ohio Synod, Western District, and yet only as such had we brought complaint) "against the candidate Strauß were taken again into consideration, and after all testimonies at hand in regard to the whole matter had been thoroughly examined in several sessions, earnestly and without prejudice weighed and discussed, the Ministerium came finally to the following decision:

"Resolved, that this Ministerium, having conscientiously and faithfully examined and weighed the accusations of Messrs. Sihler, Husmann and Bartholomew" (with whose complaint, by the way, ours has nothing to do) "according to all documents and testimonies at hand, under earnest prayer and supplication, has come to the almost unanimous conviction that the Evangelical Lutheran St. John's Congregation in Fort Wayne by no means deserves the name Rotte, etc., that it has been founded in orderly manner, although it, like other congregations, consists of weak sinful men who are ever in need of faithful pastoral care; that the accusations against Mr. Strauß, that he is an open and wilful liar, etc., have in reality no ground, yet that he has done many a thing in his lifetime out of weakness, imprudence and haste, which he feels himself urged to repent of heartily. Of the correctness of this judgment the Ministerium has been sufficiently convinced, since even the complainant present (A. Bartholomew) withdrew his accusation unconditionally."

So far the proceedings of the Ministerium. The withdrawal, mentioned above, of the accusations against Mr. Strauß by A. Bartholomew took place on the 25th of May, the preceding resolution was adopted on the 26th. Mr. A. Bartholomew, however, sent on this day a telegraphic dispatch from Columbus to the Ministerium, in which he announces that he feels himself constrained to insist upon his former accusations.

Respectfully
Yours,
L. Albrecht, Secretary.

What shall one say, however — so I ask every sensible and judicious reader of the Lutheraner who is bound by no party interest, but is a sound son of the Church — what shall one think of this decision of the Ministerium of the Western District of the Ohio Synod? But I will still hold back my summary judgment and first set the individual parts of this decision before the reader.

1, There it is said first (the inflated introduction, whoever has a mind may read above) "the Evangelical Lutheran St. John's Congregation at Fort Wayne by no means deserves the name 'Rotte' and has been founded in orderly manner."

As to the name "Rotte," I have neither ever used it orally nor named it anywhere in my written complaint, but have employed only the expressions: separatists, loose crowd, adherents of Mr. Strauß, and the like. But if anyone else has called these folk Rotte, then they at any rate have not accused Strauß and his people before the Synod; what then is the point of the rejection of an expression in the above decision which has not been used at all? But as to the "orderly way by which the congregation has been founded," proof is wholly lacking that could satisfy the conscience of the complainant. P. Husmann and I — who, I hope, are not ill-reputed as forgers of lies — submit a faithful historical report how Strauß went to work here, how faithlessly and perfidiously he acted, and demand an orderly investigation. And in what does this consist? That the Rev. Ministerium takes the oral self-testimony, together with all sorts of declamatory protestations, of the present