# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 10 03_S21
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could now be kept back by no danger, however great, to which he thereby manifestly exposed himself, from continuing, even against the high command he had received, to administer his office as before. On that very day, therefore, he married a young couple. With sorrow, however, he was obliged to see that his congregation all too soon became fainthearted, and that he had to complain of most of his hearers with the prophet: "They return, but not aright, but are like a deceitful bow," which, when one wishes to draw it up and shoot with it, breaks. Hos. 7, 16. The promised supplication, namely, was not made. When therefore, shortly afterward, on Friday the 10th of May, the monthly day of repentance was to be observed, Günther took into account in his penitential sermon the present circumstances of his congregation. After he had in the introduction compared the present with that time when the prophet Amos (7, 10. ff.), through the incitement of Amaziah, the idolatrous priest at Bethel, was driven out by the king of Israel, Jeroboam, he set forth, following the guidance of his text, Ex. 33, 1—7. 34, 4—10., the following three points: "1. How God, with His Word and temple, began, out of righteous wrath, to depart from His people; 2. how the eternal Son of God and His faithful servant Moses held God back with prayer, and 3. how God at last consented to turn again and to remain further with His people with His temple and Word." A great multitude of people went on that day to the Table of the LORD, and on the following Sunday the number of communicants was so great that the office of communion lasted in the morning from 4 to 9 o'clock.

But on the day after, on Monday the 13th of May, the real day of trial finally dawned. For already early in the morning it became known that on this day the above-named commissary Kottwa would arrive with a Roman Catholic priest and solemnly install him in the parsonage of Friedland. Günther therefore held divine service once more in the morning, and represented to his hearers how he had indeed been ready to hold out among them, whatever God might will for him; but since out of sinful fear of men they had done nothing to preserve the threatened freedom of pure divine service, he saw himself compelled to take leave of them; yet this they should know, that if they would now at last stand fast with him for God's pure Word and not let it be taken from them, he was even now still willing not to depart from the place and to await the outcome. All were silent, and sadly Günther went into his dwelling.

What happens? The sorrowful tidings become truth. In the afternoon the canon Kottwa actually comes, with several Roman priests, on horse and in carriage, accompanied by fifty musketeers, entering Friedland in great pomp, and betakes himself with his whole retinue to the castle, whither the church fathers, burgomasters and judges are at once summoned, who receive certain instructions which they must immediately consent to fulfil. With what anxious expectations the people of Friedland looked forward to the following day the reader may well imagine. The day breaks, and at once an order goes out to the youngest in all the guilds to ring all the bells. They refuse at first to obey the order, but when Kottwa set against their refusal the threat of severe penalties, the men summoned, alas, finally yield to the command, though with heavy hearts. So the new pastor and dean, the former priest at Königshain, by the name of Sebastian Balthasar, is thereupon introduced by two princely commissaries and the burgomasters and city judges constrained thereto, amid the ringing of all the bells, in a solemn procession with great pomp and splendor, into the Friedland town church, which the church fathers must open; the same is cleansed with the customary superstitious papistical ceremonies of its alleged defilement through the evangelical divine service and consecrated anew, the priest is invested, and thereupon the first Roman Catholic sermon and the idolatrous mass are held again. After the performance of this he is led, the priest, into the parsonage and presented to the council, which must promise him protection, honor and maintenance; whence the commissaries with the clergymen return again to the castle and make themselves merry there.

Günther was obliged for the most part to be an eyewitness of all this; only a few faithful ones were about him in this time of distress. Kottwa had brought with him an Imperial letter, in which it was given as the cause of the deposition of the Lutheran preachers that they had misled the people by suspicious sermons, incited them to disobedience against their authorities, and given occasion to insurrection; this letter Kottwa communicated to the members of the town council and of the church board, and complained at the same time against them that Günther in particular had shown himself a bitter enemy of the Catholics and had brought it about that no Friedland citizens would send their children to the school at Gitschin. Günther, to whom this was reported, thereupon sent to the castle a written protest against the first-named accusation of fomenting insurrection, offered himself for an oral defence, and declared that he could not depart unless one gave him his dismissal in writing and set the true cause of his dismissal therein. All attempts to obtain an oral hearing were in vain, but at last Günther received a written dismissal, in which as the cause of his deposition it was stated: "that he had not been willing to submit himself to the jurisdiction (ecclesiastical authority) of the archbishop of Prague and to the ceremonies of the Catholic Church."

Composedly Günther accepted this decision, and since in the afternoon the clergy betook themselves to Reichenbach, he remained until the next morning with a loyal citizen in Friedland. But now, after church and parsonage had been taken from him by force, another preacher installed in his place, and the official command published to him that all Lutheran preachers must without delay vacate city and country, and his congregation also knew no means to keep him with them, — now the hour of departure had struck for him also. Yet once more the faithful shepherd gathered the dear flock about him; it was on the morning of the 15th of May 1624, about the tenth hour, that he stepped once more upon the open market-place among them — several thousands had already assembled here at daybreak, from the city as well as from the country — and testified to them first once more that, for his own person, he was willing to remain wherever they knew lawful means and ways to keep him. But when the council and several of the citizenry gave answer: "They must now commit the matter to the dear God, yet they hoped soon to fetch him back again with joy"; Günther replied with a broken voice: "The Lord's will be done; so I depart from you, with the knowledge of you all, with sorrow; farewell!" Thereupon the whole assembled multitude burst into loud weeping, and Günther now went on foot out of the city, accompanied by several councilmen, the whole citizenry, and a great number from the countryside, in all about 2000 persons, who followed him, sobbing and lamenting, as far as the Cunnersdorf height, half an hour's journey distant from the city.

Günther himself writes of this in his report: "What I thought and spoke on the way during this, is known to the dear God, and I commend it to pious Christians for reflection, inasmuch as it cannot be described."

Having arrived on the height, Günther stood still until the whole multitude had come up to him, and after a circle had been formed, the venerable exile stepped into the midst and delivered his farewell sermon. He took as his foundation Acts 20, 17—38. and set forth from it the departure of the holy Apostle from the elders at Ephesus, how he appealed to his right doctrine and blameless life which he had led among them, 2. faithfully exhorted them to remain steadfast in the truth they had recognized, and diligently to beware of false teachers and false doctrines, and finally 3. gave them all a hearty farewell blessing and commended them to the grace of God; all of which Günther applied to his last farewell from his dear people of Friedland. Of this glorious, moving sermon of farewell, rich in Scripture and in spirit, we communicate only a few specimens. The introduction runs as follows: "O ye my children of heart and of sorrow (Gen. 35, 18.), hitherto dear and beloved hearers (Phil. 4, 1.), who have given me, until now, as far as this unaccustomed place, in great multitude, your escort to my sorrowful exile! What a sorrowful journey have we now made! Our feet are