# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 09 12_S4
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

4

village, and should go thither, in order to instruct on the spot not merely the children of his band, but also the old people themselves. This we did not need to be told twice, notwithstanding our scanty means. A house has already been erected there, and Missionary Baierlein has gone thither with the interpreter. On the first Sunday, when he held a meeting there in order to preach to them the Word of the cross, he counted about seventy hearers. Let us by all means pray diligently that the LORD may give His words power and open the ear and heart of many of them, that they may be converted from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, to receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance together with us who are sanctified by faith in Christ. — Another chief, whose son is also in our school, has urged us to buy him a piece of land, which he will pay off with the money which they still receive yearly from the United States. This wish also has been granted, and they have already begun to clear a piece for regular cultivation. The Indians on our mission land have likewise been stimulated by the fine fruits of their diligence, which the LORD has given them this year, to prepare a further piece of land for the coming year. Meanwhile, of course, the Methodists also do not cease to carry on their old mischief. Not only do they continually plow with great shamelessness in another man's field, but they still make use for it of the old lies, such as that the Indians would be removed unless they become Methodists, that they will receive no more money, and the like. In doing so they often do nothing more than to fabricate them quickly into Methodists by all manner of persuasion, in order then to neglect them shamefully, either not instructing them in God's Word at all, or setting over them at once preachers from their own midst who themselves know nothing at all of the Word of God. Thus they have lately not only converted very quickly a boy who ran away from our school, and who would not even learn the Lord's Prayer by heart with us, but have also at once made him a preacher of the Word, which he cannot read, much less teach, and of which he has only heard them howl a few times. But he has, to be sure, a good throat and can shout lustily; so he has, indeed, the necessary qualifications of a Methodist preacher. — Here it is indeed needful to set ourselves against it with prayer, and earnestly to entreat the LORD that HE would acknowledge our good cause, which is indeed His own, and graciously check that mischief. So pray diligently with us, and help also otherwise, especially now when so little help is to be expected from Germany. Lately we read that the Barmen mission institution has already had to close for lack of sympathy. With Basel, too, it is said to stand sadly. This bodes nothing good for the poor Lutheran mission also; yet we hear that the Nuremberg Central Society is more and more inclined to support the Lutheran mission more vigorously in future with its Lutheran money.

May the LORD, the merciful God, prosper the work of our hands, and open the hearts of many, that we may more and more become a people zealous of good works, and that His name may be spread ever wider also through us, and the kingdom of darkness, so far as lies in us, be destroyed. A. C.

The Lichtfreund.

It will be known to the dear readers in the East that we have here in the West only a single man who honestly takes up the spreading of light among us, namely Mr. Mühl at Hermann, Mo., who out of great modesty calls himself not even a Man of Light, but only a Friend of Light; just as the great wise men from of old called themselves not Sophists (wise men), but only Philosophers (friends of wisdom). Everyone will see that under such circumstances we here could always be supplied with light only sparingly, and that thus the West has had to remain, to this hour, the shady side of North America. Yet — who would believe it? — there has, alas, shown itself here even among the "Friends of Light" so little receptiveness for light and enlightenment that even that one light shining upon us, for lack of the well-known necessary fuel, dear money, went out suddenly and wholly several months ago. What a horrible darkness has settled since that time over the whole West, the dear readers will excuse us from describing. But what has happened? The said Mr. Mühl, who has already brought so many sacrifices for the cause of enlightenment, has now set the crown upon his noble zeal and — only grateful posterity will be able fully to appreciate it — has even submitted to the humiliating business of going from city to city and, in the interest of the western world to be enlightened, of taking refuge in the benevolence of all Friends of Light. In consequence of these efforts Mr. Mühl has then been put in a position again to let his light shine anew, of which we also have received a specimen in the latest number of the "Lichtfreund," raised again to life. But as it ever happens in the world that seldom a misfortune comes alone, so it has also, alas, befallen Mr. Mühl. For he has had the misfortune to receive, probably from a masked obscurantist who calls himself a Friend of Light, a correspondence from St. Louis, which probably aims at nothing else than to give the poor "Lichtfreund," scarcely snatched from death and scarcely breathing again, the death-blow anew. For thus we read in the latest number of the same:

"Inquisition-practices of the Old Lutherans. From St. Louis there is reported to us, concerning the ways of the Old Lutherans, the following occurrence, which recalls the Inquisition in the Roman Church of times past, and deserves to be communicated."

"A man of the said Old Lutheran congregation had sinned against the sixth commandment, and was therefore, after he had been several times the theme of the sermon in the church, thrust out from the communion, and indeed, after a full ban had been pronounced over him, in which, according to the report that has reached us, it was said: "'That no one shall receive the excommunicated under his roof, and support him in his civil business.'""

This report Mr. Mühl now takes, in his good nature, as true, and reads the so-called Old Lutherans in St. Louis a sound lecture in what follows, instructing them that "the church is a moral institution, and therefore its means of punishment may also be only moral." The whole admonition is delivered so earnestly that one is truly seized with pity to see how guilelessly the most unfortunate of editors has again walked into the trap laid for him by a rogue. For we can assure you that of all that the so-called Old Lutherans in St. Louis are here accused of, not a word is true. They know very well that the church ban may include no civil penalty and therefore may aim at no injurious consequences for the civil life of the one banned. The Lutherans in St. Louis are naturally better acquainted than the Lichtfreund, who is a great enemy of all churchly symbols, with such utterances of their church as the following:

"The great ban, as the Pope calls it, we hold for a mere secular penalty, and it does not belong to us ministers of the church; but the small, that is, the true Christian ban is, that open, obstinate sinners shall not be allowed to come to the Sacrament or other communion of the church until they amend and avoid the sin. And the preachers shall not mingle the secular penalty into this spiritual punishment or ban." (See: Christliches Concordienbuch. Edition of Ludwig in New York. Page 311.) —

We wish from the heart that the prostitution which Mr. Lichtfreund must experience, almost innocently, at the hands of a feigned friend in this matter, may serve that the former may not only cleanse himself as well as possible by a retraction, but also henceforth take better care not to make his "Lichtfreund" a bearer of darkness, for only truth is light, but lie is just darkness.

Dedication of a Church.

On last Sunday, the 10th after Trinity, we had the joy of being able to dedicate our newly built little church near Waterloo, Monroe Co., Ill. It was for us in a twofold respect a day of thanks and praise, namely not only because we now have a decent