# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 08 15_S206
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

206

sess such a precious jewel! Therefore, ye hearers, let this not be called to you in vain now by the LORD of all lords, and ye, honored representatives of our congregations, take this Word of our God, which has here come to you, with you as a treasure, and impart it to those in whose name ye have appeared here.

May finally God the LORD Himself let His mighty voice sound forth far and wide from this grave, over all preachers and congregations of our Synod, yea, over this whole land; and may this voice everywhere bow down and awaken, so that from this grave life may flow forth into many, many hearts, and thus our wounds be healed. This may God the Father do through His worthy Holy Ghost, for the sake of JESUS Christ, His dear, dear Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen! Amen!

The Apostasy
of the Congregation at Shebahyonk. *)

*) We communicated this sad occurrence orally already at the last Synodical meeting at St. Louis, and poured out our grief into the hearts of the faithful brethren. Yet it was the general wish that a special narrative of it also be printed in these pages, so that all members of our congregation might receive a living picture of the wretched state of things in Shebahyonk, and so take refuge in faithful intercession with the Father of all mercies.

The very heading of this communication calls upon the dear reader to prepare himself for a sad report, which we may no longer withhold, because the hearts of all those who have lived through the sorrow with us are too full of grief not to call upon their brethren and sisters to help them bear the great affliction that has befallen us.

When worldly connections have existed for a time, it may be that one or another wonders when they are suddenly dissolved; yet one soon reconciles oneself to it, when the first shock is past; but when members fall away from the body of Christ whom He, the faithful Shepherd, had gathered to His flock and appointed to eternal salvation, without their returning, yea, when even a whole Christian congregation again becomes the prey of the devil, the Christian mourns not merely days and weeks, but all the time of his life it distresses him that souls so dearly purchased could be lost.

Such is the case with the former Christians at Shebahyonk on the Saginaw Bay. The dear readers know what a lovely plantation of God among the heathen there it still was a few months ago; they know what precious confessions had been made by the Christian congregation of the Indians there; they know how willing they had been, for the sake of God's Word, even to leave their home, and still in the past April to set out for their brethren at Bethany as soon as the sugar-making should be finished. Ah, that we could report that all had come to the glorious goal! But it is not so. With bleeding heart we write what follows:

An English Indian trader had occasion in March of this year to spend an evening and the following night with an Indian family at Shebahyonk. In the evening conversation the talk also turned to the great removal to Bethany, which the Indians, as they said, were awaiting with great impatience. Thereupon the stranger sows evil suspicion in the hearts of the unsuspecting souls and reproaches them that they had let themselves be persuaded to such a removal. It would be to their great harm. Their priests wished to lead them into misfortune.— The more credulous the Indians are by nature, the greater becomes their agitation; the devil is busy and stirs up the evil thoughts. The Indians gave themselves up to them, and from then on they looked upon their missionary Auch, in whom they had hitherto trusted as children their father, with distrustful eyes. Two of them accompanied the departing guest to Lower Saginaw and brought back from there a formal confirmation of the suspicion just sucked in. Some English traders in that town, anxious about the loss of certain trade advantages which had hitherto fallen to them through the Indians living near, looked upon their departure with great vexation and ceased not to assail the two Indians with the following representations: "More than half of all pastors are deceivers, they preach out of a lying-book (the Bible); this book is there to the misfortune of the people; the Indians were to be driven from their dwelling-places into slavery and bondage. They should by no means suffer this, and should throw off the fetters."

These whisperings of the devil were willingly received by the Indians, once made suspicious, and communicated by them on their return to the other men of their tribe. Now the whole village was as if transformed.— The missionary Auch, after the two Indians had come home with their idle reports on Thursday, had, as usual, rung the little bell for devotion on Friday evening. It struck him that only 6 men and one woman appeared for it, since so small an attendance at the services had never been known before. After the close of the service the chief Meganigischik approaches the missionary and announces to him with striking irritation that on the morrow he wished to hold a "council" with him and the other Indians; but, he adds, not in the church, but in his own house. This last remark, as well as the bitterness with which he spoke, was proof enough to the missionary that an evil spirit had entered into the Indians, and soon he was to find it confirmed. On the next day he went, though with a heavy heart, to the appointed council and learned now all that the devil had wrought for him. After he had recovered from his first shock, he instructed those present concerning the dreadful abyss of perdition to which they had been led by the enemies of the kingdom of God, and besought them with tears not to reject the LORD and His Word; but all this was without any success. Even the threatening of the wrath of God and of eternal damnation, if they should not become sober again out of the devil's snare, brought nothing else to pass than an insolent challenge of God, that He might only punish them. They would not be deceived any more, so they said.— The missionary Auch begged them repeatedly not to despise the Word of God so utterly; then they spoke again of it as of a lying-book; they would know nothing more of it. The chief Meganigischik declared that he would henceforth hold nothing of all that the Word of God had laid upon him; at most he would, as formerly, so also henceforth abstain from work on Sunday.

At all these proceedings the heart might have broken in the faithful pastor; he would rather have sunk into death than have lived to see such a thing. A whole congregation, years of toilsome labor lost in the eyes of men! Not one let himself be lured back!— That was a heavy cross laid upon him to bear.

A little spark of hope still lived in him, namely that perhaps the words spoken had been uttered in agitation and would soon be repented of. But this hope also failed.— On the following day, namely, a Sunday, the missionary rang, as otherwise, his little mission bell and went to the church to hold divine service. But none of the Indians appeared. Instead of that the young fellows went past the church with their axes, as if they wished to mock the service. Sad and without having accomplished anything the missionary had to go home.

He now waited some weeks longer for a return, and summoned once more the missionary Mießler, together with the interpreter from Bethany, to him, in order to admonish the faithless once more, but could obtain no general assembly any more, but one had to seek the people out in their houses by parties.

They all persisted in their enmity against God's Word and despised the fatherly exhortation of their orthodox teachers. The poor people! Deceived a hundred times in truth by spiritual and worldly deceivers, now that at last through God's grace the full pure truth of God's Word is preached to them from the mouth of faithful shepherds, they let themselves be blinded by the devil to thrust away from them even their faithful teachers as seducers.

The LORD had once more spoken plainly to them in brief. For whereas hitherto in the Christian congregation, about 4 years old, no single death had occurred among the Indians themselves, in these same days two youths were snatched away in a state of dreadful convulsions into a sudden-