# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 09 12_S13 # AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 13 What will you do now? Will you forsake the well, now that the spring flows more strongly and those who desire its water grow ever more numerous? Will you now, when the tree grows and gives more shade and fruit, and the number of those who long for it increases, withdraw your hand from it? No, certainly not; on the contrary, you will, with God's help, do something special. The wings of the institution, the southern and the northern, stand finished; let your love now complete the work. According to the plan laid down, the central building is to be 56 feet in front and 000 feet deep, to contain on the ground floor a large dining hall, on the first floor a hall for the library, for evening and morning house devotions, school exercises, and the Advent and Lenten weekday services, and on the second and third floors bedrooms. If it were erected, not only would the fourth teacher live in the institution, but about eighty pupils could be received, and the institution would thus have a sphere of work almost twice as large as now. The work is a considerable one; for the cost of building is estimated at about $6000. But here something great is at stake. What does a householder not spend on the well in his yard and the fruit tree in his garden! Should one not then be willing to do something for this well, for this fruit tree? And are you not many? And are there not many who stand near to us through their pastors, who have joined us? If all of you, once, would earnestly lay hands to it, the work that lies before us could be accomplished. There is no doubt that if every one would take part, the necessary sum could be raised without burden to the individual, or at least without too great a burden. Do not overlook this, dear congregations, that it is not so much required that much be given by individuals, but that something be given by all, and indeed according to ability. What matters, then, is that all have a heart for the cause and that every one lend a hand. And will you not do so? It is indeed your well, your fruit tree; every one has a share in it, enjoys it, and shares it with others. How would it be, therefore, if we held a day of rejoicing, this year yet, soon; if the congregations would unite upon a day on which they would take this matter to heart and lend a hand? The dear pastors might, if it so pleased them, each set before his congregation what God has done for them and what they do for God, especially with regard to our institutions of learning, and the dear members of the congregations might consider, among other things, the word of the Apostle: Be not weary in well doing! Be not weary! For your heavenly Father is not weary. What would become of us if He were once to grow weary! But His goodness and faithfulness are new every morning. Therefore be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Be not weary. For so long as you do not grow weary, you live; but if you grow weary of doing good, you fall into spiritual sleep and death. Further, one may have reaped or otherwise received much this year, another little; let him who has much consider that he has so much the more reason to give; let him who has little consider that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, which the poor widow in the Gospel also considered. What joy it would be, if every one knew that his fellow believers were taking part with him on the same day in a common work, and what joy indeed, if through their common effort on one day, perhaps in one hour, the same were accomplished and the means procured to make the well wider and deeper, and to support, to dig about, and to water the fruit tree that is common to us all and equally dear to us! We could then soon see completed this monument of the faith that worketh by love, and through which much blessing may go forth upon generations. And so that the distant brethren also might be placed, as far as possible, on an equal footing with those present, an illustration, faithful and yet cheap, might be prepared immediately after the completion and sent to those who should desire one. If, now, the above words find approval, one or a few congregations need only propose a day which is likely to suit all, or most, and which should then, where possible, be adopted by all. In conclusion we commend the institution, with its teachers and pupils, to the further intercession of the dear congregations, that God would bless and keep them, grant to each in his calling wisdom and faithfulness, and forbid Satan to enter in. B. The "Free Men." It is remarkable how the wicked rogues are often told, by their own companions and their own prophets, the truth which they will not hear from God's prophets. The holy Apostle already writes of the ungodly inhabitants of Crete: "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true." (Tit. 1, 12. 13.) So it now goes with the so-called "free men" of this place. One of their prophets is the notorious atheist Heinzen, at present in Louisville. This fellow, although he himself surpasses all "free men" in wickedness with respect to blasphemy, nevertheless begins to be ashamed of most of those who here call themselves free men, on account of their coarseness and brutish manner, and in his "Pionier" of August 4 reports among other things the following dialogue word for word: Heinzen. A free man, however, is not to be had so cheaply that he could be obtained through mere opposition to priestcraft. One becomes a free man as little by being an anti-priest as one becomes a republican by being a prince-eater. The renunciation of priestcraft is merely the first step toward becoming free, is merely the breaking of a chain of slavery. But the slave who has broken his chain is not therefore yet free. If he is coarse, if he is brutish, then through his liberation only coarseness and the brute are unfettered. The practical application of this truth hits in its full sharpness, naturally, the fewest of those who call themselves free men for that very reason, because here, where no royal police any longer leads them on the leash, they have also broken the leading-string of the priests. Nevertheless many believe that they have thereby obtained the warrant for unfettering mere coarseness, and most imagine that as "free men" they no longer need any progress on the road of freedom. Free Men. We rail at the priests, crack lewd jests about the Virgin Mary, and are free men. Who wants to do anything to us? We have a society and a great man who leads it — that is enough. We are made men, finished like a laid egg, and need no further addition. Heinzen. But you wallow in beer like the sow in the mire and conduct yourselves like the rowdies? Free Men. Never mind, we rail at the priests and are free men. Heinzen. But instead of by priests, you now let yourselves be led by the nose and exploited by anti-priests, who are as worthless as the former? Free Men. Never mind, we rail at the priests and are free men. Heinzen. But you are coarse and ignorant, and although only education can truly make free, you use your means and your association only for the satisfaction of senseless lust for pleasure? Free Men. Never mind, we rail at the priests and are free men. Heinzen. But you do not even send your children to school, still less do you think of founding a free school yourselves, in order to have your descendants educated to be truly free men? Free Men. Never mind, we rail at the priests and are free men.