# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1949 06 21_S213
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

213

explanation of the five points in this judgment. This is expected shortly.

Rome has never shrunk from approaching the public treasuries in every possible way in order to obtain support for its idolatrous and antichristian work. One can therefore only rejoice when this impudent conduct is opposed and, as this judge has done, called to a halt. May the same happen in other places too, wherever Rome stretches out its greedy hand.
O. E. S.

A Wise Physician. There are still physicians, writes the editor of the Lutheran Sentinel, who value the worth of the Bible and are not ashamed to confess it publicly.

A young woman turned to the well-known physician Geo. W. Crane in Chicago for advice. She had heard the address of a famous educator in which he expressed his regret at the great ignorance most people display regarding the outstanding books of the past. This made such an impression on the young woman that she resolved to found a special cultural society, and she wrote to this physician for advice.

Dr. Crane agreed in general with the educator's judgment, but first advised the woman to occupy herself not with the writings of Aristotle or Plato but with those four books which have exercised ten thousand times greater influence on mankind than all the books named by that speaker. By this he meant the four Gospels. The Bible, he said, has sixty-six books in one binding, but most people, even those who have earned a college diploma, have not even read these four books of the Bible. Yet, he went on, it is to these four books that we owe it that we have so many colleges in America. These four Gospels have also called almost all hospitals into being. Has anyone ever seen an Aristotle University? or a Plato Hospital? or a Shakespeare Youth Hall? or a Victor Hugo College? — That was well said, except that we wish above all to emphasize this, that not the writings of the philosophers of this world but the Bible alone can make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. This faith worketh by love and brings forth the fruits so necessary and so welcome for the social life of men together.
O. E. S.

Euthanasia. A fine-sounding name for a shameful deed! For the name means as much as gentle death, mercy killing, that satanic principle according to which people would help helpless cripples, and those afflicted with incurable and agonizing diseases, mental as well as bodily, to a merciful end in a painless and legal manner. More than fifty American pastors have given their consent to this unchristian procedure and have called forth decided protests, even from distant Australia. One of our pastors rightly writes in the Australian Lutheran: "A closer investigation would no doubt bring to light that these 51 pastors are of modernist conviction. Where one no longer believes in the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture, one soon falls victim to all manner of ungodly imaginations and distortions. . . . Euthanasia is a heathen practice. It is like what the heathen still do today when they expose unwanted children to the elements, strangle twins and crippled children, or drag their aged parents, who can no longer earn their keep, into the bush and let them die a slow death. Just as little is one justified in the conclusion that the consent of a grievously suffering person to a gentle death on his part annuls the Fifth Commandment. Such consent is given, after all, also by the one who commits suicide. These are the people whom the Apostle Paul, 2 Tim. 3:3, in his description of the last times calls trucebreakers, that is, those who are without natural affection. To true children of God mercy killing is an abomination."
O. E. S.

On the Journey to Bad Boll

Reports from Paris

On Thursday at 1 o'clock in the morning, May 26, our train arrived in Paris. At the station P. F. Kreiß, a member of the Alsatian Free Church, greeted us three professors from America: J. T. Müller, Martin Franzmann, and the undersigned, and drove us in his car to a hotel where he had reserved a room for us. The next day Professor Franzmann and I were luncheon guests in the friendly home of Pastor Kreiß and his family. After the meal we drove out with him to Senlis, a small suburb of Paris, where Pastor Kreiß directs a children's home for children from three to fourteen years of age. At present 35 children are housed there. Our relief agency (Emergency Planning Council) made this fine home possible, and our women's league (Lutheran Women's Missionary League) has supported it generously with its gifts. Here Pastor Kreiß conducted an Ascension Day service in the French language. About 9 o'clock we returned to Paris and spent two more pleasant hours in the parsonage, where a young Lutheran, Mr. Leske, from our sister synod in Australia, who is at present studying music at the famous National Conservatory of Paris, entertained us with his masterly piano playing. The next day Pastor Kreiß, accompanied by his gracious wife, showed us some of the chief sights of Paris, among them, what was of special interest to us, the old Lutheran church in which our sainted Dr. Stöckhardt once preached before he emigrated to America and became professor at our Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. Toward eight o'clock the same day we boarded the train that brought us to Frankfurt the next morning.

Our mission work in Paris was begun twenty years ago when P. Martin Strasen, who has recently taken a post at our seminary in Porto Alegre, Brazil, sought out Lutherans of the Free Church who had settled in Paris. Pastor Kreiß took up his work in the year 1930. The attractive church together with the adjoining apartments, in one of which Pastor Kreis lives with his family, was built in 1936. In the first years of his ministry Pastor Kreiß preached in three languages: French, German, and English. Since the war, however, all services have been held in the French language. The congregation now numbers 60 souls. The