# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1933 ff. masthead not in scan _S169
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

169

are. Already right after Luther's death attempts were made to make the Lutheran Church of Germany Reformed; but the wicked cunning of the so-called crypto-Calvinists did not succeed at that time. Those who were true Lutherans at that time set themselves against this corruption of Lutheranism, and out of this arose the so important Formula of Concord, a glorious Confession, in which also the false doctrines of the Reformed are masterfully refuted. To be sure, Calvinism has something attractive about it: it is in accord with reason and pleases the flesh. Also here in this country we want to be on guard against the creeping false doctrine of Calvinism, especially against taking into ourselves the Calvinistic, rationalistic, and Unionistic spirit through the reading of Calvinistic books.

J. T. M.

The Evangelical Church in Poland. How it fares with a Protestant church body in a staunchly Catholic country becomes very clear from a report that the "Luth. Herold" brings from the German paper "Das evangelische Deutschland." There we read among other things: "Superintendent Dr. Blau of Posen gave a shattering picture of the situation of the German evangelical part of the population in Poland recently in Bremen. In Poland one now counts only 98 German evangelical schools, whereas in the year 1925 there were still 646. Some 15,000 children are compelled to attend Catholic schools. In the most favorable case, two religion lessons a week could be given. In the readers there are only stories of the saints, but nothing is said in them about Luther and Wittenberg. The children learn Catholic customs and carry them innocently into the families. The greatest concern, according to Superintendent Blau's exposition, is now for the rising generation, that it may be preserved in the faith of the fathers. Men of all classes stand together in order to make reading services possible, in order not to let the organ fall silent and not to reduce the choirs to silence. Poland makes the importation of German children's primers impossible by placing the highest duty on them as picture books. While thus the evangelical church in Poland is being pushed back and slowly strangled, 1,500 new Catholic churches have been built there in recent years; a still greater number were repaired and newly furnished. While Catholic children, like children in general who attend a Catholic school, are picked up and brought home by a school bus, this has been forbidden to the German school children."

Thus Rome carries on mission work in its own way, wherever it has the power in its hands.

J. T. M.

The Pope in Other Countries. While the Pope celebrates triumphs in countries like Poland, things do not go so well for him in other Catholic countries. To his regret, a new penal code has appeared in Italy, in which all offenses against the religions recognized by the State -- the existing State religion in Italy is the Roman -- are to be punished by the courts. Protestant churches are thereby protected against the fury of the mob, although only recently the Pope again raised protest against all Protestant communions in Italy. In Spain the evangelical mission is developing an activity such as never before. This comes from the fact that the new government recognizes no religion as a State religion, so that all have opportunity to spread. Especially the Spanish youth is now very much interested in the church with the open Bible. Until now the various evangelical groups in Spain were separated; but they have now united in order to carry on the mission work jointly. In Yugoslavia the Jesuits have had to leave the country. The reason for this was that they could not feel "national," because as a result of their training they were only "mechanical creatures" who had to obey blindly the orders of their general of the order, who in turn serves only the Pope, but the latter for his part pursues only Italian politics. In England the Archbishop of Canterbury has declined to take part in the centennial celebration of the so-called Oxford Movement, which leans toward Rome, "because the English State church bears not only the character of the apostolic and Catholic, but also that of the Reformed and Protestant, and the Oxford Movement from the beginning aimed at destroying the work of the Reformation." So the Pope must indeed put up with manifold humiliations.

J. T. M.

Spreading of the Bible by Mail. It is remarkable how much the Bible is in demand in poor China, afflicted by war and unrest. Last year the British and Foreign Bible Society sold many Bibles especially in China, and now a mission periodical reports that the post office there has made a special arrangement, according to which the Bible can be sent cheaply and safely by mail. Not only in China proper, but also beyond, as far as Harbin in Manchuria, westward to Tibet, where until now there has been such hostile opposition to the spread of the Bible, and southward to Yunan, everywhere where there is a Chinese postal facility, the Bible is sent safely and cheaply. The paper remarks: "This is, as it were, a wonderful dispensation of God, that his Word may be spread in this poor land in this way."

Equally wonderful is the news from Africa that a missionary there brings. He writes: "Our people here always read whatever they read aloud, as the chamberlain from the land of the Moors once did. Now it happens that a circle of people always forms around the readers, who listen devoutly, ask questions, and so are led into the Scriptures. Now if one has a Bible, others also want to have one, and so they come to us and ask for a Bible or for a Testament. In this way God's Word spreads of itself, and often it is a wonder before our eyes how the seed of the Word springs up in the hearts."

J. T. M.

Retrospect and Prospect.

Through Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Of an old territory of our Synod in southern Minnesota, in the vicinity of Mankato, I reported something last time. But now, since after the Synodical Conference I still had some days' time, a longer trip through Minnesota and Wisconsin was also in prospect for me, and this trip led me again through a whole series of Lutheran places to a Lutheran center in northern Wisconsin.

How did I come to this? An old friend and fellow student, President H. Daib in Merrill, had already invited me more than once to get to know the church region in and near Merrill more closely some time, and since I did not lack the desire for it, he had drawn up the whole plan for me. He had asked the vice president of his District, P. P. Schedler, who was a delegate at the Synodical Conference, to bring me by automobile into the northwestern part of Wisconsin, with Fall Creek as the center, and then he had notified younger pastors of his District of my trip, who, whenever I had some stopover on the further journey, picked me up from the railroad stations and devoted a few hours of their time to me until I could travel on. So I did not need to trouble myself about any travel plans; everything was well prepared, and I was in fact, as the American politician likes to say, "in the hands of my friends."

Early in the morning we left Mankato, and before sunset we were in Fall Creek. And it was an interesting trip for me in pleasant company; for Vice-