# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 05 09_S151
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

151

themselves." . .

"Will not those to whom the continued existence of a closed Lutheran Church sure of itself is an offense and stumbling-block point to the resolution of the Church Diet and say, here it is to be seen that Lutherans and Reformed, notwithstanding their differences of doctrine, can after all be comprehended under the unity of the Augsb. Conf.? †) Hitherto the lack of confession in the Union has been an irremovable reproach against it. Will not the resolution of the Church Diet be used from now on to prove the possibility of a Union that is not without confession, indeed the existence of a reformatory Union confession, and to represent the resistance which is made on the Lutheran side to the Union, all the more confidently, as mere carnal obstinacy or stubborn lack of understanding? And yet a Union forcing itself upon us in the name of such a sham confession ought to be contradicted no less than the avowedly confessionless one." . .

†) That has already happened here. Thus the so-called Evangelicals here have exploited the matter in favor of their dear Union. Compare the "Friedensbote." Ed.

* * * * * *

It will certainly be to every reader who loves the divine truth no small joy to hear such an unvarnished confession of the doctrine laid down in the symbols of our Church, and against the mixing of religions and the so impure, dishonest conduct of our time in the confession of the truth, from Germany, and indeed from the mouth of men as highly learned as they are highly placed. From the "Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und Kirche," where that protest is printed, we see that an ever greater number of preachers are joining this protest and signing it, among others twenty preachers of the deanery of Hersbruck in Bavaria and nine preachers in Nuremberg. Would to God that all true Lutheran-minded people here in the United States would unite also in such a protest against the mixing of religions, called the evangelical Union, so much in vogue here also, and against the abuse which is practiced here with the name "Lutheran"!

How the Jesuits Are Defended or Left in the Lurch by Their "Lowest Henchmen."

Mr. Oertel, who in his paper of the 7th of April of last year declared that he gladly lets himself be called a quite subordinate henchman of the Jesuits, has now at last, after we reminded him of his duty, done his duty. The reader can imagine, just as befits his position among the Jesuits. Mr. Oertel's defense reads thus: "We hold it by no means worth the trouble to enter any further upon the foolish attacks of this "old-Lutheran fencer, since all that the Lutheraner has ever put forward and can put forward is so hackneyed and tedious that no one among our readers, except at most an old Lutheran woman who happens to be the wife of a Catholic man, could have any pleasure in it if we were to take further notice of it. Secondly, the Fathers Jesuits need no defense from us, and all that the Lutheraner may shriek and write against them is of no consequence whatever. Whoever is so stupid as to believe such things because they stand in print, let him believe it by all means. We Catholics know very well how it stands with us and the Jesuits, and need not the Lutheran wisdom... This blinded disciple of Luther takes pleasure in the most absurd and filthiest remarks against the Jesuits and the Catholic Church, which he thoughtlessly prints from antiquated and long-refuted Protestant writings of lies, bona (or rather mala) fide."

Mr. Oertel hereby completes the picture which we, as every educated theologian who has read our things knows, have drawn with the Jesuits' own words from their order's constitution and from their chief writings. We see from it that the basic system of the Jesuits is the system of palming off lies by means of ambiguities. Mr. Oertel shows us that in this Order there are also lower grades of persons who must lie without any ambiguities. These will probably be such people as already have no good name left and who therefore can lose nothing thereby. In the Jesuit constitution it says literally thus: "No one of those who are admitted to domestic services shall learn to read or write, or, if he already knows something, learn more science; and no one shall teach him without authority from the Propositus Generalis, but let him content himself with serving our Lord Christ in holy simplicity and humility." (Institut. Soc. Jes. II, 76.) Probably Mr. Oertel has already risen to the grade of such a house-servant of the Jesuits. In that case he is indeed to some extent to be excused if in his "unholy simplicity" our citations are Bohemian villages to him, and to be pitied that, because the Herren Jesuits do not wish to burn their fingers, he must fetch the hot chestnuts out of the fire for them at the cost of burning his honest name.

"Der Herold des Glaubens."

After we had already written down our remarks on the answer which Mr. Oertel gave us in his "Katholische Kirchenzeitung" to our article on the Jesuits, we received the number of the "Herold des Glaubens" of the 16th of April, in which the masked editor of this Jesuit paper too finally comes out with an answer. And what does he answer?— Too witless to write anything himself, he prints off, word for word, the Oertel answer written with an iron liar's brow, and then outdoes the Jesuitical "lowest henchman" at New York in shameless mendacity in the few words which he adds himself. For he introduces the clean Oertel product with the words: "The Lutheraner, a sect-sheet at St. Louis, must lately have behaved naughtily again; we conclude this from a rebuff which the New York Kirchenzeitung gives it in its latest number to reach us; it writes:"— whereupon Oertel's words follow. The cowardly, ignorant and unscrupulous man pretends, in order to be relieved of an answer of his own, as if he himself knew nothing at all of what the "Lutheraner" has written about the Jesuits, while he yet exchanges with us, and indeed in such a way that the "Lutheraner" must come into his hands. We confess that this conduct of the Jesuit lackeys here has furnished us a weighty contribution to the completion of our insight into the villainy of Jesuitism. We really thought that these gentlemen would try some artificial argument that, despite the genuine, undeniable sayings of the most renowned Jesuits quoted by us, approving all sins and shames, this Order is nevertheless a wholesome institution. But no! the gentlemen were afraid, if they proceeded so, that this one or that one, unacquainted with the matter, plagued by curiosity, might be tempted to read for himself what was brought forward against the Jesuits. So they thought: the Lutherans know already that we are liars; if therefore we speak out a palpable lie even to them, we lose nothing with them; but how easily might we lose something with our dear Catholics if we posed as though we wished to refute the accusations! Well then, the good end sanctifies the evil means: let the one therefore say that all that was brought forward is not true; the other, that he has not read the matter at all.—Well, by all means, you gentlemen! Go on so; men can indeed only despise you, and must let you have your way. But consider, there is a Man of whom it says: "Thou destroyest them that speak leasing; the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man;" and there is a Day when the liars' trade will be stopped and their mouth shut, and when then their "part shall be in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death." Do you not fear this Man and this Day? May God grant it to you and give you repentance. But if you will not repent, you will one day, on that dreadful Day, with Oh and Woe remember what a despised and derided Lutheran has now told you. Then, however: "You pour out in the woe also a sea of tears," it will be said:— It is too late!