# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 07 17_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

189

of the Holy Ghost that make him fit for it, the gift of wisdom and knowledge, and the gift of speaking of wisdom and of knowledge (1 Cor. 12, 8.); on the other hand he must stir up these gifts, exercise them, develop them, that is: study (2 Tim. 1, 6.). Let no one say that those gifts, even without their cultivation, were sufficient for the ministry; that there is no need of study for it, since the apostles also, at least for the most part, were not learned men, and yet through the Holy Ghost became the most capable of all preachers (Acts 4, 13.). The equipment of the apostles and evangelists for the ministry is one of those wonderful works of God which belong to the revelation of God in Christ and which, now that this revelation is completed for the time until the Last Day, may not be expected of us. In times of absolute necessity and complete lack of educated preachers, God still even now does His work of grace in the Christian congregation through members of the congregation who have not especially cultivated their gift of preaching; but if a Christian endowed for it, to whom time and means for the acquiring of his gift have been granted, were unwilling to study, and instead to expect a miraculous equipment like that of the apostles, if Christian congregations, such as those here, were not zealously to see to it that Christian preachers and teachers are trained and educated, but lazily and covetously to leave the accomplishment of this work to a miracle of God, they would all alike starve spiritually, just as that man would starve bodily who wanted to be idle because the Lord Christ fed the four thousand and the five thousand miraculously (1 Thess. 4, 11; 2 Thess. 3, 10. ff.). One of the most numerous and powerful fanatical sects in England and the United States, the Methodists, for a long time regarded the Christian instruction of children, and especially the education of learned preachers and teachers, as useless, indeed harmful, because knowledge puffeth up (1 Cor. 8, 1. cf. v. 2.); but as shrewd and energetic people, such as they really are, they too have more and more had to give up this perverse opinion, and have established colleges and seminaries for the training of preachers, and indeed in many places congregational schools as well.

You see for yourselves that, in order to build churches and schools among you, you cannot take enough care for the maintenance and growth of the higher institutions of learning in Fort Wayne and St. Louis, in which preachers and teachers are being trained for you and your children. Other German synods of the Lutheran confession have long and often striven in vain after such colleges and seminaries, the oldest Lutheran synod of this country for more than a century; our Synod received these institutions as a dowry and marriage portion, immediately when it came together, — woe to us if we do not acknowledge this goodness of God, with which He has so highly favored us above others, if we do not let it lead us to repentance, if we do not cherish and promote with loving, active hands these schools, which are rightly called "high" schools! If we neglect them, we may in the meantime build in our own midst the most beautiful churches and school-houses; God will punish us before the others therewith, with preachers and teachers, with false prophets, such as are not heard of among the others. Therefore, as you pray for your own churches and schools, so pray also for the High Schools in Fort Wayne and St. Louis, and do so diligently and fervently, regarding yourselves all as fellow-laborers in these noble workshops. Murmur not, count it not begging, when you are called upon to contribute liberally to the building of the houses needed for it, to the support of the teachers, to the defraying generally of the necessary costs: thereby you secure for yourselves and your children and children's children the intellectual and spiritual treasures of Christian culture and education, which are inestimable, a more imperishable capital and richer interest than you could gain and bequeath by heaping up dollars upon dollars. Rather praise the grace of God, who desires of your goods for so high a work!

The professors and teachers at your High Schools and seminaries in Fort Wayne and St. Louis are to teach our young people what and how they must study. It is therefore absolutely necessary that those professors themselves study, for he who does not himself increase in science and knowledge cannot lead others to growth in science and knowledge. Study requires time. Therefore it is your duty to see to it that the instruction at your High Schools and seminaries is divided among a not inconsiderable number of professors, and thus sufficient time for study is given to them. Why then would you keep the number of your professors so limited that for unceasing labor they have no time left for study? Perhaps in order to pay only a few professors, and so to spare your purse? — Study requires strength, strength of body also. Do not think that because a farmer or tradesman can work 10 hours a day, therefore a teacher also can give 10 hours of instruction daily and then further prepare himself for the instruction by study of his own. At any rate, someone may once have endured such an exertion for some time, but you must not lay it upon anyone's neck, for you yourselves also do not want to be made unfit for work by excessive labor. Teaching is still considered here in this country as work to some extent, studying mostly not; people think a pastor or professor is idling when he perhaps walks up and down in his study musing, or seeks refreshment on a walk for renewed mental exertion; and yet, before one judges so harshly the poor students, one should rather try it once himself, to devise a lecture for the school and, in general, to spend days, yes nights, in meditation and other intellectual labors. What would the farmer, who is just preparing the seed with winnowing-shovel and sieve, say, if I were to call out to him: Stop, friend, you are idling! As little as he in such an undertaking, so little does the teacher or preacher idle, who reading and thinking prepares the seed, the doctrine, which he wishes to impart to his scholars or hearers. — Study requires a fresh, cheerful spirit. You can well imagine that when a man goes about under oppressive trials, e. g. cares about daily bread, mental labor will fall very hard upon him, far harder than bodily labor. Trial indeed, together with prayer and study, makes the theologian, but you, you must not cause trial to any man, therefore not to any theologian, professor or preacher, must not even permit that anyone who works for you or on your behalf or stands near you at all, falls into trial, e. g. into cares about daily bread: to lay on and to permit trial is a prerogative of God, of which He has never yet left a tittle to any man, and whoever tolerates or even brings it about that his teacher or pastor falls into trial, sets himself thereby upon God's throne. Would you do that? People wonder, yes rather they are vexed, that a learned man cannot get along with an income which perhaps suffices others, even more than suffices. But the learned man's own preparation at schools and universities required far greater costs by much than any preparation for another calling, e. g. that of a tradesman; the life and work of the learned man bring with them a multitude of needs which do not press upon others so strongly; his education places him quite of itself among the more highly educated classes and therefore also demands a manner of life corresponding to this position. Your professors, preachers and teachers have come into this country with the resolve, for the sake of the work upon your souls and your children's, if it is God's will, to bear want and privation, also the lack of the adornment of life corresponding to their own station and education, but only God, God alone may demand such of them, not you: you are bound to procure for them at least such a life as other honest people of their education lead here, that you for your part may not hinder them from studying with fresh and cheerful spirit. If you do not do this, there will soon be no proper preachers and teachers among you any more.

The dear readers hear continually and from all sides the complaint about the great lack of proper preachers and teachers. By God's grace a whole number of German congregations are indeed provided every year with preachers and teachers, who have either been sent over by loving fellow-believers in Germany or have been trained in our seminaries in Fort Wayne and St. Louis; but the wish and request of many congregations for the sending of shepherds cannot, alas, be fulfilled, and many a populous place in the neighborhood of our congregations must remain unvisited. The want which these fellow-believers suffer is also for the congregations which are provided with good preachers and teachers a suffering (1 Cor. 12, 26.) and awakens no less in them the desire to put an end to it