# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 09 12_S7 # AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 7 ing tribe in Hungary) have pushed in, who possess an altogether different language and national character. Equally unwelcome to them is the supremacy of the Germans. Bohemia therefore refused decisively to send deputies to the German National Assembly at Frankfurt. Instead of this there assembled in Prague, on the 30th of May, a great Slavic Congress, at which deputies from the most various Slavic tribes appeared, in colorful variety of their national costumes and dialects. Three days before, a great festival of reconciliation was celebrated in Prague between the German and Czech inhabitants, but this reconciliation did not last long. On the 12th of June a terrible conflict broke out. The Prague students, the Swornost or Czech National Guard, and a mass of unemployed workmen stood on the one side, the Austrian military under Prince Windischgrätz on the other. The Princess was shot at the very beginning, her son severely wounded. From the barricades and from the windows fire was directed upon the military with bitterness. The latter therefore moved up to the heights above Prague, bombarded the city from there, and wrought a terrible devastation in it. Prince Windischgrätz kept the upper hand in the end, and was thereupon appointed civil and military governor of Bohemia. The Czech provisional government under Count Leo Thun, which had formed itself after the events in Vienna on the 16th and 26th of May, ostensibly in opposition to the revolutionary spirit prevailing there and from devotion to the Emperor (to whom the Czechs sent a splendid embassy to Innsbruck), was deposed. It is said that if the plans of the Czechs had succeeded, all Germans in Prague, or at least all the prominent men among them, would have fallen as victims of the hatred of the Czechs, so that in this respect the defeat of the latter is not to be lamented. — In South Hungary at the same time the conflict has broken out between the Croats and Serbs on the one side and the Magyars and Germans on the other. As it is said, Russia stirs up this fire, in that those peoples hope for help from it as a kindred power, and are encouraged in this hope by Russian agents. The Magyars on the other hand join themselves so much the more closely to the Germans, and have sent envoys to the National Assembly at Frankfurt, in order to promote a friendly neighborly relation between the two peoples. Of the 35 millions of inhabitants of the Austrian empire about 8 millions are Germans, 5 millions Magyars, 16 millions Slavs (counting the Poles in Galicia) and 6 millions Italians, Wallachians, Gypsies etc. The Slavs are therefore far superior to the other tribes in number, but stand behind the Germans in culture, behind the Magyars in bravery, and behind both in possessions and power by far. So far the Botschafter. Later reports of the 9th of August say that the civil war in Hungary is indeed terrifying. The insurgents are advancing and preparing to besiege the largest and richest cities of Hungary. The war is being conducted in the most barbarous manner; beheading and sawing off of limbs seems to be the order of the day among the insurgents. A Hint for the Discontented of Our Day. Luther relates in his writing: Whether Soldiers Too Can Be in a Blessed State? the following story: One reads of a widow who stood and prayed for her tyrant most devoutly, that God would let him live long, etc. The tyrant hears it and is astonished, because he well knew that he had done her much harm, and such a prayer was strange. For common prayer for tyrants does not usually run so. He asks her why she prays so for him. She answered: I had ten cows when your grandfather lived; he took two from me; then I prayed against him, that he might die and your father become lord. When that happened, your father took three cows from me. Again I prayed that you might become lord, and he die. Now you have taken four cows from me; therefore I now pray for you, for I am anxious lest whoever comes after you take the last cow from me too, with all that I have. So also the learned have a parable of a beggar who was full of sores, and many flies sat in them, which sucked and stung him. Then there came a compassionate man, wanted to help him, and drove all the flies from him; he cried out, however, and said: Ah! what are you doing? these flies were nearly full and sated, so that they did not trouble me so much any more; now the hungry flies come in their place, and will plague me much worse. — Do you understand these fables? To change the government and to better the government are two things, as far apart as heaven and earth. The Scales. Under the reign of Charles I, King of England, the goldsmiths in London were accustomed to weigh their gold and silver in the presence of the royal Privy Council. They made use for this purpose of such accurate scales that the scale turned at the hundredth part of a grain. This the master of this guild assured them one day. Noy, the King’s Attorney General, who was present, cried out: “Truly, I would not that my actions should be weighed in these scales.” Are you not of his opinion, reader? And yet the scales which God holds in His hands, who will judge you, are infinitely more exact. How shall a man justify himself before God? Of a thousand he cannot answer Him one. (Job 9:2, 3.) O, how greatly we need therefore the merit of JESUS Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption. (1 Cor. 1:30.) (Altes und Neues aus dem Reich Gottes. By Hahn.) John 1:29: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (Luther on these words.) God says: I know that your sins are far too heavy for you to bear. Therefore behold, I will lay them upon My little Lamb and take them away from you; believe this, and if you do it, you are free from sins. Sin has only two places where it is: either it is with you, so that it lies upon your neck, or it lies upon Christ, the Lamb of God. If now it lies upon your back, you are lost; but if it rests upon Christ, you are free and will be saved. Now choose which you will. That the sins should have remained upon you, that would indeed be according to law and right; but of grace they are laid upon Christ, the Lamb. Otherwise, if God were to reckon with us, it would be all over with us. A Saying of John Newton. I sometimes compare the afflictions to which we are subject in the course of a year to a great bundle of wood, much too heavy for us to lift. But God does not require that we carry the whole at once; He graciously unties the bundle, and gives us first one piece, which we are to carry to-day, and then another, which we are to carry to-morrow, and so on. Thus we should get on easily, if we only took up the burden appointed for each day; but we gladly increase our affliction, in that we carry the piece of yesterday again to-day, and add the burden of to-morrow to our load, before we are called upon to carry it. — The Faithful Baptismal Witness. Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. (Luke 18:16.) The blessed Johann Tobias Kießling in Nuremberg was also a great friend of children, because he once kept to the little and lowly in the land. When he then went along the street, there was often no getting done with the children, who all wanted to greet Mr. Kießling and give him their hand. Besides, he was also everybody’s godfather. Indeed the connections into which he came through the multitude of his sponsorships were by no means of the kind that he would be much envied for them. For the greatest part of his fellow sponsors belonged not only to the poorest people in the city, but with quite a few of them the conduct also was not at all creditable. But when people tried, say, to restrain him by telling him one thing and another about the new fellow sponsors that was not at all creditable, he always answered: “They are men after all, they are redeemed Christians after all, perhaps the LORD will yet bring them around.” And so he held even the child of the most despised and most contemptible parents himself at baptism, prayed for it with his whole heart, and also afterwards, when no one else cared for the poor forsaken little worms, cared for them quite like a father, as a true godfather (co-father), for their outward and inward welfare. To the inward care of the poor children entrusted to him through holy baptism he devoted quite many a free hour, especially the Sunday afternoons. One could then almost always see a considerable little flock of poor children in Kießling’s house, most of whom were among the godchildren of himself or of one of his sisters. There they were then admonished in the most impressive manner, instructed in the chief doctrines of Christianity, stories out of Holy Scripture and other edifying books were told them, pictures shown, and singing done. In this, of course, there was no lack of outward, bodily refreshment. The blessing did not fail; the great Friend of children in heaven blessed Kießling’s labor, so that he saw, in several of these his godchildren and of the other poor children, the fruits of his prayer, his admonitions and instructions.