# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 10 03_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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oversight, every year two Special Synods, for each of which he had a Latin treatise printed on one or more articles of the Augsburg Confession, upon which a common disputation was then held during the sessions. Also one of the preachers had each time to deliver a sermon before the whole assembly, which likewise, if it was found good, was given to the press. Besides, the time of the session was employed for mutual questioning and instruction on important subjects of the conduct of office, of church discipline and of church order. There is a printed testimonial in our hands which all the preachers of the Ephorate issued to their dear Ephorus Günther; in it they cannot praise him enough, not only as a man equipped with the most distinguished gifts and profoundly learned, but also as a true father in Christ, as an excellent example in a godly life, as an untiring champion for the jewel of the pure doctrine, and as a keen-sighted watchman over the conduct of office of his brethren in the ministry, who could at every moment have found with him the most approved counsel and the richest comfort in all their concerns.

The dear reader can well imagine that Satan will have looked with envious eyes upon the glorious work which was carried on and furthered in that region through such a precious instrument of God. This also soon became manifest. To be sure, Friedland remained spared in the first years of the war. While in Prague, after the first decisive victory of the Imperialists over the Protestant troops in the battle of the White Mountain (near Prague, on the 8th of November, 1620), already in the year 1621 the Papistic Reformation was begun, all Lutheran preachers and teachers were driven out of the city, and all churches and schools together with the University were assigned exclusively to the Jesuits, things remained at that time still quiet and peaceful in Friedland, and it was thought, since evangelical worship had existed alone here for 90 years, and Friedland was also a frontier town, that one probably had nothing to fear here. But it was not so. God had purposed to purge his floor, and since the judgment always begins first at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17), there were laid up precisely for beautiful Friedland, this garden of God, which had been visited with grace so long and so abundantly, especially heavy trials. The time came when the LORD once sought fruit in his so faithfully tended vineyard.

It happened, namely, that the Emperor in the year 1622 enfeoffed the notorious Count Albrecht von Wallenstein (then a major-general in the Imperial service) with the lordship of Friedland. This Wallenstein had been the son of Lutheran parents, but had later gone over to the Roman Catholic Church. As such apostates always do, so Wallenstein also showed a peculiarly glowing hatred against the confessors of the faith he had solemnly abjured. To this was added that Wallenstein at the outbreak of the disturbances had been driven out of Olmütz by the Protestant Bohemians, and thereby his hatred against them had only been the more increased. When therefore Lutheran Friedland came into his power, it soon had to feel his thirst for revenge bitterly. Already on the 12th of August of the following year (1623) there appears Herr Kottwa von Freifeld, canon at Prague, as Wallenstein's commissary, to inspect the parishes of the Friedland Ephorate and to inquire concerning the situation, the income, etc., of the same. Soon thereafter the fruits of the parish fields and the tithes that had fallen due were seized, and the peasants were forbidden to carry away any movable property of the Lutheran pastors. In all this, since no protest is received, our Günther still exhorts to patient suffering. But when at last in October of that year the order comes that a certain number of boys of the Ephorate, who were fit for study and whose parents were well-to-do, should be taken out and put into the newly established Jesuit school in the nearby Gitschin,*) Günther, with all the preachers of his Ephorate, earnestly raises his voice against it, and since precisely in the city of Friedland alone, moved by Günther's urgent representations, all the citizens unanimously refuse to deliver one of their children into the hands of the Jesuits, the hatred of the Jesuits is now directed in particular against the Superintendent Günther, as the most obstinate Lutheran. The consequence of this is that the captain at Friedland, Hans von Gersdorf, a Lutheran, on the 4th of May, 1624, receives from the said commissary Kottwa a writing of the following content: "Herewith it is commanded to expel all foreign pastors residing in any place of this lordship, whereupon every one must have moved away by the 6th of May, so that, on pain of the highest danger, none of them may be encountered by the Catholic priests who are to be newly introduced; for already he, Kottwa, is on the way with regular Catholic priests, to introduce them forthwith into the parishes of the Friedland lordship. Herewith let His Princely Grace's**) earnest, unalterable will and command be done." Thereupon on the said day the whole clergy of the Ephorate is summoned to the castle before the office and the order received is communicated to them by the captain. The preachers ask for permission to withdraw and to consult together; and after the latter has been done, Günther in the name of the whole Lutheran Ministerium gives the following answer: "First, it would seem to them most painful that they should be torn from their dear parishioners and these set in danger of their souls; but they comforted themselves with their good conscience and their good cause, since no other cause of their dismissal was given them than that they were not, as people thought, worthy and regular 'Catholic' priests; therefore, as they had preached Christ, so they acknowledged themselves bound to suffer with Him, and hoped God would soon tread Satan under their feet. Secondly, they laid before the Herr Captain the question whether he really intended to carry out the order received? And finally, thirdly, they wished at least hereby to have requested him to intercede for them or at least to move the country to this, that it should jointly petition against the order; and if the Herr Captain will not regard them, he shall at least think of the welfare and salvation of so many thousand people." Thereupon the Herr Captain gives them to understand "that nothing heavier had ever happened to him in the time of his life than that he had been obliged officially to communicate to them the present order; but even if he were willing to intercede for them or to urge the country to it, he was yet the officer of His Princely Grace and must therefore do what was commanded him, however unwillingly he did it; an intercession for them might easily be construed as rebellion; if the country would do it, he would be quite content for his own person." To this sad Pilate-speech of the captain, already overcome by fear of men, Günther gives the reply: "Since the Herr Captain refuses all help in the matter, he must at least declare for himself that, because in his vocation he is referred to his hearers and these to him, he could not leave his office upon such a prohibition until he be forcibly driven out; he would therefore first learn the mind of his entrusted parishioners; for he acknowledged himself bound, in such persecution, which was directed not only against him but also at the same time against his entrusted little sheep, as a faithful shepherd to lay down his life among his dear hearers, if these would use lawful means without tumult, to which he would by no means counsel." Likewise all the preachers declared themselves unanimously; whereupon the captain dismisses them without making any objection.

Immediately Günther now has all the elders of the congregation come to him and informs them what has happened; that he has the order to leave the city this very day, but that he has appealed to his dear parishioners; at the same time he asks the elders to make this known to the city council and the whole parish. On the following day, the 7th of May, the council and the whole congregation assemble, and then let their pastor be told that they thank him for his offer and request him not to leave them, that they will at once draw up a supplication (petition) to His Princely Grace and dispatch the messenger this very day.

After our Günther thus believed himself assured of the will of his congregation,

*) Wallenstein, as is well known, was buried in a Carthusian monastery at Gitschin.

**) In the year 1623, namely, the Emperor had raised Count Wallenstein to be Prince of Friedland.