# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 12 05_S61
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

61

the sponge in the sea, the brushwood in the forest, the water in the well and the wind in the air, is himself a sponge, who, when he passes over the soul through the Word, cleanses it of all sinful dampness; a broom that sweeps the heart; a water that washes away all filth; and a wind that scatters all poisonous vapors.

Whoever begins to build does not stop, but carries the work on. So the Holy Ghost does not rest until He has completed what He has begun. Therefore be comforted, dear soul: your faith is kept and preserved by Him.

Imagine to yourself a wondrous thing which you can use for anything you will: when you walk, it is your staff; when you rest, your pillow; when you hunger, your pantry; when you thirst, your fountain; when you are threatened, your weapon; when you sleep, your shelter and shield; what you have of it in a beautiful dream, that is Christ to you in truth.

Into the bitter sea of sins, on which your heart is tossed, let the wood which Moses saw from afar be dipped with the Word of the cross — and it will become sweet.

Another Example,
of How in Germany the Church's Distress in North America Is Remembered.

In the number of the Sächsisches Kirchen- und Schulblatt of the 26th of September there is found a "Letter to a Candidate from His Uncle," from which we herewith communicate some things to our readers.

"You have," so writes the uncle (evidently a Saxon preacher) to his "beloved nephew," "You have, as I have seen with joy from your Dresden letter received the day before yesterday, passed with honor your examination of eligibility as an evangelical Lutheran candidate for the ministry. The certificate of censure granted you is returned herewith. Your aunt's eyes filled with tears of joy and the children rejoiced when I explained to them, by numbers, the worth of the words "very well" and "well" written in chancery hand, and indicated the meaning of the little stars added to the latter word. I too, dear Gotthold, press you in spirit to my heart, with thanks toward the faithful Lord of the Church, who has helped you thus far. To Him be praise and glory! But what I am always repeating to my own, that I say to you also, although without doubt you have already said it to yourself: that with which God's grace has crowned your diligence is not your certificates brought home from the human examination. Their worth is far surpassed by your now obtained eligibility for the holy ministry in the evangelical Lutheran Church, which is founded upon the rock of faith in Christ JEsus, and therefore, like His whole Church, belongs to Him and is invincible". . .

"I hasten to the other part of my letter, to the answer to your weighty inquiry. After the expiry of your first engagement (appointment) as a house tutor, which has filled so suitably, with a view to your further spiritual preparation, the two years between your Leipzig university examination and your Dresden examination of eligibility, you are in doubt whether you should seek a second such position, which you would soon find — or whether you should follow "the impulse of your heart" and place yourself in the service of the Lord with one of the numerous pastorless congregations of German Lutherans in North America. You make your decision dependent upon my fatherly counsel and give me, besides regard for your cheerful readiness for the latter step and for the remainder of your inheritance, which together with your savings would cover the cost of the journey out and eventually (that is, if circumstances should require it) of the journey home, only this to consider: what a superabundance of candidates for the ministry there is in our narrow fatherland, and what a want of them in those wide regions over which our churchly confession is spreading in ever-growing extension. You press me for an answer and desire my decision, as you call it, as soon as possible. Your remarks during your visit had already made the question the subject of lasting consideration with me. After repeated consultation before the LORD I will no longer withhold its result from you."

"I say go, go, go! Go in God's name! — The reasons that move me to answer your inquiry so decidedly in the affirmative, and to assure you beforehand of my blessing upon your undertaking, agree quite closely with your own motives."

"Of the LORD JEsus we read in the Gospel: When He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion on them; because they were faint and scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. On this single passage of Scripture, to say nothing of others, my Yes to your Whether or whether not rests against my flesh, which would like to say No. For first, I should hardly know another "people" to which the description contained in the quoted passage of Scripture would apply in a higher degree than to the thousands and thousands of those emigrants of our Church, from our fatherland, scattered in the United States of North America, who are in danger of languishing spiritually and of being lost to their spiritual mothers, just as they have turned their backs upon their bodily fatherland, unless help is given them. "For to them, if to any members of the house of the LORD, the comparison with sheep that have no shepherd applies, through whom the voice of the Chief Shepherd might reach them. It behooves us to gather them from their dispersion, to ward off their spiritual death, through the pasture of the Gospel, withheld from them for years and decades through their own and others' fault, and through the administration of the Sacraments instituted by Christ according to Christ's ordinance. They long for it and stretch out their hands ever more yearningly after it, without even, for example, within the territory which the evangelical Lutheran Synod of already organized congregations in Missouri, Ohio and the adjoining States embraces, the seminary at St. Louis being able to satisfy the needs and wishes of these organized congregations and of ever new ones coming into organization."

"But are you also the man to render a dutiful contribution, by direct help, toward satisfying the need there so undeniably present? I have not concealed from myself how decisive this other side of the question is. Its answer depends by no means merely upon your cheerful readiness in itself, but upon the nature of it, indeed even upon this last of all, but first and much more upon your other obligations and upon your ability. Only because in these three respects no misgivings occur to me on your account, I do not hesitate to answer your main question with Yes. Your general ability is proven; the special one, for which acquaintance with the conditions of the country is needed, you can acquire by staying there in the country at first for some time and working in a related calling as a teacher in families or at institutions, also practising yourself in preaching, yet in connection with Synodalists, with whom we should therefore enter into correspondence from here already, and whose answer we should, for the sake of safety, have to await before your departure. For this interim and waiting time I offer you my house for your lodging, if you will assist me in my office and in the instruction of your cousins. The latter assistance I shall remunerate, and you shall not lack the necessary leisure for your English studies. From all obligations toward my family, except that which is written Rom. 13, 8, I release you. If your parents were living, I am convinced they would do the same. That you wish to go on supporting your poor aunt in the future is honorable, a duty which we both share toward your blessed parents. Above all, however, in this I grant you full right, you are indebted to the LORD. Him you can serve everywhere, and can serve Him in the way for which you have prepared yourself and which, under His gracious guidance, you have chosen for your life's purpose, in all probability sooner there than here. To be sure, you are also bound in service to the Church and to the fatherland. But the former reaches not only farther than the latter, but, in my opinion, it must be said of both