# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 07 29_S196
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

196

I give, therefore, what I have from other trustworthy accounts. Their congregational constitution seems to have been pretty much like ours. From the congregation they chose a number of the most pious and experienced men as elders, with whom the pastor governed the congregation. About their conduct there is only One voice. Thus, among others, the well-known co-founder of the Methodist fellowship, George Whitefield, who visited them, praises how industrious they were, what hearty brotherly love bound them to one another, what wholesome church arrangements existed among them, how they settled among themselves all occurring misunderstandings through the preacher and his elders, and how especially Pastor Boltzius, with admirable zeal, devoted himself to the education of the youth. A proof of how highly they were esteemed, through their pure Christian conduct, also among members of other confessions, is the zeal with which the said Whitefield helped them to the erection of an orphanage at Ebenezer, with which a school of education and a nursery for preachers were afterward to be connected. After he had at last, through collections made with his own hand and with manifold self-sacrifice in England and America, brought together a considerable sum, he bought for this purpose 500 acres of uncultivated land and in 1740 himself laid the cornerstone, whereby he gave the house the name "Bethesda." This institution, enlarged so laboriously little by little, has nevertheless in part had very sad fortunes. Already 2 years after its dedication it was in danger, together with the whole province, of falling into the hands of the hostile Spaniards, and in the American War of Independence it was for the most part destroyed.

But the new settlers also did not lack hatred and manifold persecution, the complete absence of which would, on account of their fidelity to the Confession or their conduct, have to fill us with misgivings. Among other things they earned very bad thanks from many settlers by the fact that, in order to have no temptation to drunkenness, they steadfastly refused from the outset any importation of brandy in their places, although the good results of their steadfastness were palpable, although, according to the report of a member of the above-mentioned royal board of directors, in those parts of Georgia in which the importation of brandy was permitted, far less health and bodily strength were generally to be found. Still more hatred they drew upon themselves by steadfastly and zealously opposing the introduction of slavery in Georgia, begun later and gradually against Oglethorpe's original will, and [illegible] proving by the deed that even in [illegible] climates the Europeans among those he[illegible] could get on well with the cultivation of the land without Negroes. They protested longest against it, and even then not all let themselves be quieted when the assurance was given them that the Negro slaves should be brought up and treated as Christians. Only when a requested opinion from Germany declared to them: "If you take slaves in faith and with the intention of leading them to Christ, this act will be no sin, but it may bring you a blessing" — did those who until then were still filled with scruples of conscience cease to swim against the stream.

This first Salzburg settlement in Georgia received, however, in the following years one increase after another from their fellow believers and fellow sufferers, not to mention those Lutherans from other German regions who afterward likewise settled among them. Under the leadership of Baron von Reck, who belonged to them, who acquired great merit for their settlement and has described their arrangements more closely in Urlsperger's "Reisediarium," there arrived in the years 1735, 1736 and 1741 three more companies of Salzburgers in Georgia. Of the first of these a fine account was once communicated in Nro. 14, p. 55 of the 3rd volume of this periodical, to which the reader may refer. Of the last, however, let it be mentioned here that 50 of them passed through Stuttgart, where in an uncommonly numerous assembly a farewell sermon was preached to them by M. Conrad Rieger, known by his devotional writings. It was just the third Sunday after Trinity. On the ground of the beautiful Gospel of the lost sheep and the piece of silver, he sought "in a common, familiar discourse" to give and leave to all his hearers, "but especially also to these departing pilgrims something for a blessed remembrance" 1. of Jesus and 2. of the hearers' souls. And after he had done this in his original manner, which goes to the heart, he turned at the close once more to the Salzburgers present in particular and said: "Take with you to Georgia what I have given you concerning your soul. The LORD Jesus is your rightful Commissary, who receives you into His oversight, keeping, care and account. He says: all souls are mine, Ezek. 18, 4. You are all equally dear to Him, He will keep you all safe unto salvation. Ah! keep, then, you also with due faithfulness and care this priceless jewel! What would it profit you if your body came sound to Ebenezer and your souls took harm? What would it profit you if you brought in a little property and lost your souls? Nothing! You make up the half of the number of those that are counted in the Gospel. You are reckoned at fifty heads. Ah! may the LORD make you all good-natured little sheep: but keep yourselves also, that not a single one of your number be lost! O beautiful little flock, if fifty truly converted people joined that larger flock! Ah, bring nothing of the sins and bad habits over the sea into the new world! Cleanse yourselves thoroughly on the way, and wash yourselves as lambs that have just come out of the sheep-wash. Let no scabby one be among you and infect the good ones there: but let much that is edifying be seen in you to the honor of Jesus Christ and His Church. Walk therefore worthy of the Gospel of our LORD Jesus Christ and know that you are people on whom many thousand eyes are fixed. Your unfaithfulness, coldness, hypocrisy would give greater offense than that of others; it would be doubly shameful if you deceived our good hope and turned our present blessings into sighs. Let your two teachers there be especially commended to you. They are shepherds after the heart of Jesus and feed the flock that is committed to them with all faithfulness and love. Acknowledge them in the LORD; have heart and good confidence toward them, follow their voice and gladden them with your obedience under their burdensome office. Finally pray for us, we will pray for you. And so I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, who is able to strengthen you and to give you the inheritance among all them which are sanctified through the name of the LORD Jesus!" —

With this I will also conclude this narrative. But if you ask, dear reader, after the descendants of these brave fighters for the jewel of pure doctrine, whose history you have surely read not without shame and encouragement: you may well find enough of their descendants according to the flesh in the old and new world, but in vain will you seek in many of them the doctrine, spirit, faith, fidelity and fear of God of the fathers. Ah, pure doctrine and its glorious fruit can indeed pass as an inheritance to the children; but it cannot be bequeathed in a testament like house and farm, but descendants are needed who at the departure of their believing parents can pray and beseech with Elisha that their spirit may be doubled upon them (2 Kings 29,). Since now the descendants of our Salzbur- forgot it more and more — as, alas, it commonly goes — they lost the inheritance of the fathers and over there became partly a prey of the false Union, and here partly of the sects or of a false Lutheranism. A warning sign that is for us and our children, whom God from undeserved grace and mercy has deemed worthy to continue building on His orthodox Church in the new world, to which those Salzburgers in Georgia were once chiefly permitted to lay the foundation. May therefore the thought of these their descendants remind us once again of our two preachers' seminaries, that we may make their existence, prosperity and growth once for all a matter of the heart for all of us; for