# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 06 06_S167
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

167

and it is preached through all cities and villages that at Rome there is no more righteousness." (Catal. test. verit. p. 824.)

These voices of the poor people are, we think, already sufficient testimonies from Popery itself of how necessary a Reformation of the church was at that time. They had become so loud that even the celebrated Jesuit Cardinal Bellarmin has been compelled to confess the following: "A few years before the Lutheran and Calvinist heresy broke in, there was, according to the testimony of contemporary authors, no strictness in the spiritual courts, no discipline with regard to morals, no knowledge of sacred learning, no reverence for divine things; scarcely anything of religion was left." — Consider: so a Cardinal confesses; a Jesuit makes such an admission! What must it then have looked like at that time?!

Half Baptismal Fee.

The clergyman of a Rhenish-Palatinate village had, at the baptism of a child, spoken only the opening words of the Christian faith, and thereupon baptized the child. After a few days the father of this child came to that clergyman to pay him the baptismal fee, and handed him as such 15 Kreuzer. The clergyman said: "I have 30 Kreuzer to demand." The countryman replied: "Mr. Pastor, since you baptized my child only upon the half faith, I believe I owe you also only half the fee." Embarrassed and ashamed, the clergyman had to content himself with that.

(Jugendfreund.)

We here in St. Louis make the experience that the people pay baptismal fees precisely when the preacher baptizes the children not even upon the half faith, but upon his own unbelief, by declaring before the baptism that by the "Father" he understands the Turkish god, by the "Son" a Jewish sage, by the "Holy Ghost" the power of virtue.

From Oldenburg.

The "Glaubensbote," a religious paper which is published in Oldenburg, brings the following anecdote, which marks the degree of spiritual devastation in Oldenburg.

Not long ago an educated man there told quite artlessly: he had made a curious wager with his son. The son had maintained that in our Christian creed it stands: Christ descended into hell; and there is a resurrection of the flesh. He had declared this to be a pure impossibility, and promised a considerable present as the prize of a wager. The son thereupon fetched in flying haste a catechism from a poor neighbor, and truly won the wager.

Wrath.

When Fröschel in the year 1522 had preached the Gospel at Leipzig with great concourse of the Leipzigers, and had thereby won many in that city for the Reformation, Adolph, Prince of Anhalt and Bishop of Merseburg, summoned him before him, rebuked him sharply, reproached him for his preaching, and said: "We will forbid you to preach the Gospel, or we will be no Prince of Anhalt." After the end of the conversation Fröschel took leave with the words: "Valete in Christo Jesu," that is, Fare well in Christ JESUS. Beside himself with wrath, Adolph added: "Not in Christo, but in diabolo" (in the devil). Fröschel said aloud to this: "Amen!" that is, Yes, yes, so let it be, and went.

Upon What the Church at Present Really Rests.

This is told us by the Gettysburg "Kirchenbote," edited by Mr. Anstädt. A correspondent there expresses himself thus: "As the only firm pillar of Lutheranism there stands still the King of Prussia; at his instigation the sixth Church Diet was opened and held in Berlin on the 23d of September of this year, which was attended by the coryphaei of all European, especially German, regions. The presence of the King at the proceedings and the opening of the Church Diet by himself had called forth the most joyful movement." (See the 1st number of this year.) Alas, thou poor Lutheranism, if "the King of Prussia is its only firm pillar"! Probably, however, the correspondent is merely a joker who wanted to make a fool of Mr. Anstädt.

The Three Stages of the Order of Salvation.

First, before all working and doing, one hears the Word of God, wherein the Spirit reproveth the world of sin, John 16, 9.

When sin is known, one hears of the grace of Christ. In the same Word the Spirit comes and gives faith, where and to whom he will.

Thereafter begin the mortification and the cross, and the works of love.—

Whoever proposes another order to thee, doubt not that it is the devil.

Luther in the writing against the heavenly prophets.

Humble Pride.

Antisthenes went about in rags, to show that he was a philosopher who regarded such small things as clothes as nothing. When he once met the philosopher Socrates, he quickly turned out just the torn part of his cloak, so that Socrates might see his elevation above everything earthly. But the latter said to Antisthenes: "I see your ambition quite plainly peeping out of your cloak."

Faith.

Faith is rare, writes the old Danhauer; there are many who do not understand what faith is, what the mystery of faith is, the one means of obtaining salvation, of which men preach far and near. But it is to be lamented with blood that it is not thoroughly understood. Most hold that this is faith, when one confesses the Lutheran faith, can recite the Decalogue or ten commandments offhand according to the wording, the creeds without understanding, like a parrot; or, at best, it is a mere historical faith, a cold, empty, wicked, idle thought, fancy and ens rationis (a thing of reason). Hence it comes that one thinks it is quite an easy art to believe, and that it does not come hard to one at all. Since then true living faith is the hardest thing of all, we have all the more cause to pray with the disciples of Christ: LORD, increase our faith; and with the father of the lunatic: Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Whoever holds faith to be an easy matter has never yet learned what faith is, be he otherwise ever so wise and learned.

The Refused Baptism.

When Caspar Aquila, at the beginning of the Reformation, had preached the Gospel, brought forth again from the rubbish of false doctrines, at Jenga near Augsburg, he was presently, by order of the bishop of Augsburg, brought on a cart to Dillingen and there put in prison. After a half-year's severe imprisonment on bread and water he was, however, released again. Thereupon he fled to Wittenberg and then found at Ebernburg castle, with Franz von Sickingen, a place of refuge. But here also the dear man was to experience great and many anxieties. The military garrison lying in the castle demanded of him, namely, that he baptize a cannon ball, as was then frequently the custom, or rather the shameful abuse. Aquila naturally refused decidedly this godless profanation of the holy Sacrament. The soldiers became so furious over it that they thrust him into a great brass fire-mortar which they had filled with powder, with the intention of thus hurling him out over the wall. Aquila remained steadfast. What happened now! Twice the soldiers set fire to it, and the third time the priming burned off without igniting the powder in the bomb-mortar. Touched thereby in his conscience, the commander had the faithful witness drawn out and set at liberty, whereupon he fled first to Eisenach. After a life under many tribulations, in which, however, his courage of faith never left him, Aquila finally died as superintendent at Saalfeld on the 12th of November, 1560.

Well Done.

I call that good which pleases few people and vexes many. This is as sure a sign as the manger and the swaddling clothes were to the shepherds.

Luther.