# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 06 06_S162
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

162

carry out. For our will and thine are against each other; thine alone is good, although it does not appear so — ours is evil, although it glitters.

It has happened often enough that men have loved me with the mouth while the heart was far from me; and when I laid hold of them to amend them, they ran back and fell away from me in the midst of the work, as thou readest in Ps. 78, 9. Conversi sunt in die belli (they fell away in the time of battle), who had indeed made a beginning and moved me to deal with them, have turned away from me and again fallen into sin and my dishonour.

Ah Father, it is true, no one can be strong in his own strength (1 Sam. 2, 4.) And who can stand before thy hand, unless thou thyself strengthen and comfort us? Therefore, dear Father, lay hold upon us, accomplish thy will, that we may become thy kingdom, to thy praise and honour. But, dear Father, strengthen us in such dealing with thy holy Word, give us our daily bread, form in our hearts thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, the true bread of heaven, that, strengthened by him, we may cheerfully bear and suffer the breaking down and mortifying of our will. Yea, give grace also to all Christendom, send us learned priests and preachers who teach us not the husks and chaff of idle fables, but the pure holy Gospel and Jesus Christ.

It is not good that one cast the holy thing to the dogs, and the children's bread (Matth. 7, 6. 15, 26.) Ye sin daily, and though I let you hear preaching much, day and night, ye follow not and hear not, and my Word is despised.

Ah Father, let it move thy compassion, and deny us not for that reason the dear bread, but that we do not enough for thy holy Word is our grief, and we pray, have patience with us poor children and forgive such our guilt, and by no means go into judgment with us, for no man is justified before thee. Behold thy promise, that we heartily forgive our debtors, for thou hast promised forgiveness — not that we by such forgiveness are worthy of thy forgiveness, but that thou art truthful and hast graciously promised forgiveness to all who forgive their neighbour. Upon thy promise we rely.

Very often do I forgive and deliver you, and ye still abide not, nor stand fast (Ps. 78, 8.) Of little faith are ye, not a little while can ye watch and persevere with me, ye fall quickly again into temptation (Matth. 26, 41.)

Weak and sick are we, O Father, and the temptation is great and manifold in the flesh and the world. O dear Father, hold us and let us not fall into temptation and sin again, but give us grace that we may remain steadfast and fight valiantly to our end, for without thy grace and help we can do nothing.

I am righteous, and right is my judgment, therefore sin must not remain unpunished (Ps. 11, 8.) So must ye bear the evil, that ye have temptation from it. It is the guilt of your sins that constrains me to punish them and to withstand them.

Since then the evil gives us temptation and assails us with sins, deliver us therefrom, dear Father, that we, delivered from all sins and evil according to thy divine will, may be a kingdom unto thee, to praise, extol and hallow thee heartily. Amen!

So far Luther.

Continuation follows.

(Sent in.)

The Emigration of the Evangelical Lutheran Salzburgers in the Years 1731, '32 and '33.

(Continuation.)

At Kaufbeuren, a town in Swabian Bavaria, the population of which consists partly of Lutherans, partly of Catholics, our emigrants saw Lutheran brethren in the faith for the first time, and were received by them with joy. On the 27th of December, 1731, on the third day of the Christmas feast, the first troop of Salzburgers, 800 in number, arrived here, for the most part poorly clothed servants and very poor people, who in the stormy expulsion had really left everything behind and had with them only a few infant children, whom with toil and distress they had managed to carry off from their persecutors. They came late in the evening to the town and announced their arrival by the singing of "A mighty fortress is our God." The gates were already shut, yet they were still admitted and all were still provided for. Some were lodged in the inns, others were taken into their houses by the magistrates. The very next day they were led into the Lutheran church of the place — what a sight for the Salzburgers, whose inmost soul was lifted up in high gratitude toward God and in rapturous joy to see themselves for the first time in a Lutheran house of God! — and sermons were preached to them, which they heard with great fervour, zeal and eagerness. Then whole Bibles, New Testaments and edifying books were distributed among them, and they went on, carrying their Bibles and books before them, children on their backs or in their arms, singing and praising the Lord their God. The charitable disposition of many expressed itself toward them in generous gifts, and even servants and poor people offered their mites, drawn by the spectacle of this pilgrim flock of Christ. Often the remark was heard: "Ah, see how these people put us to shame; they are far more devout and eager for the Word of God than we, although they have had it so little hitherto, and we so abundantly!" The Salzburgers heard the sermons here and afterward in other places, for the most part standing, and could not get enough of grasping them aright. The preachers, says one describer of their emigration, spoke also with fervent spirit, and the Salzburgers preached with their manner of life, for no disorder, only very rarely — and when it did occur, only among those who had joined them for the sake of gain, or because they had nothing more to lose at home — only very rarely an outbreak of coarseness or even of vice, no revelling or drunkenness was observed among them; and if now and again, from the causes just mentioned, something of the kind did occur, the heads of families punished and rebuked it severely and knew how to keep the young people in discipline and order, so that it went so well on the whole journey that they received praise everywhere on account of their good conduct.

On the 31st of December, 1731, the first emigrants from Salzburg arrived before Augsburg, to which place a commissary from Kaufbeuren had escorted them. The Catholic magistracy, however, refused them entry into the city, and restricted the Lutheran citizens as to their reception and care of them, which lasted until May, 1732, when for the first time, upon the urgent representation of the King of Prussia, a troop was actually admitted into the city. The earlier arrivals, however, had to remain outside the city. The Lutheran citizens nevertheless exerted themselves to show their brethren in the faith all possible love. They lodged them in nearby inns and garden houses, mills, iron forges, etc., outside the city, and cared most kindly for their needs, bodily and spiritual. High and low went out to meet them; the clergy, at their head the Senior Urlsperger, received them with hearty exhortations. Urlsperger and another preacher of the place delivered, on New Year's Day, 1732, in the afternoon, at two different places outside the city, several addresses to them upon the name Jesus occurring in the Gospel of the day. Urlsperger showed: "how this name was to be rightly regarded on this special occasion and rightly applied on both sides (namely on the part of the Salzburgers and of the Lutheran inhabitants of Augsburg who received them here)." They were also accompanied just as heartily when they set forward their pilgrim staff. — The first who afterward, in the spring, were admitted into the city itself were received with the greatest jubilation, which the Catholics watched with amazement and many even with emotion, and it was made a matter of concern to bestow on them gifts of every kind for body and soul abundantly. These — it was just a day of repentance — were led into the Lutheran St. Anna-