# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 10 03_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

23

they think to blot out Thy name and Thy poor little flock that confesses Thee. We have indeed well deserved the punishment from Thee. But to our enemies we have done no wrong; we have sinned not against them, but against Thee; they are not punishing our sins in us, but would blot out in us Thee and Thy holy Gospel; for if we denied Thee and betook ourselves to their papistical abominations, we should be tolerated, loved and advanced by them; but because we intend to abide steadfastly by Thy Word, we are hated and persecuted by them. Look Thou upon this, Thou merciful Father over us and stern Judge over our enemies, for they are Thy enemies more than our enemies. Therefore, when they persecute us, they persecute Thee Thyself. Awake, therefore, dear Lord God, and hallow Thy name, which they profane; strengthen Thy kingdom, which they destroy in us, and accomplish Thy will, which they would suppress in us, and suffer Thyself not to be trodden under foot, on account of our sins, by those who in us would not punish our sin, but blot out Thy holy Word, name and work in us. Thou wouldest not, O gracious God, let us waver from Thee, but keep us steadfast in the truth we have known, comfort us, strengthen us in all our tribulations, and again gladden us in grace with Thy Word and servants. Let our prayer come before Thine ears, forgive us our sins, and do as we believe and hope in Thee, through Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer. Amen." After this prayer the holy Lord's Prayer was spoken by all with one mouth, and the conclusion was made with the singing of the hymn: "Preserve us, Lord, in Thy Word, and restrain the Pope's and the Turk's murderous rage," etc., etc.

When Günther now thereupon, taking his leave of his dear hearers, thanked them for the considerable escort to his exile, there began first in earnest a general weeping and wailing; each wished to fall upon the neck of the departing father and to give him his hand; there arose so great a press that the dear man had to climb upon the wagon, from which he still continued to admonish, comfort and bless his sorrowing flock. At last he cries: Good night! whereupon follows so heart-rending a loud and bitter lamentation that, as Günther himself expressed it, one's heart might not only have bled and broken at it, but even the stones might have been moved to pity; no one, he writes, will be able to understand such grief who has not experienced the like in himself.

About a hundred persons still could not part from their beloved pastor and accompanied him, walking beside his wagon, some hours farther as far as Reichenau, about fifty as far as Zittau. The others, when they had stood still a while at the place of parting, and sung and prayed, went home at last with heavy hearts and sad countenances. In remembrance of the last penetrating words of their dear pastor, several of those who had been present planted, some days afterward, at the place where he had last stood, a linden tree, which for a long time bore the name of the Friedland parsonage linden, was often visited by the forsaken sheep and watered with their tears; but since it was a thorn in the eye of the papists, it was finally uprooted by them.

As dejecting as it was on the one hand to see, in the course of this history, how greatly the dear Lutherans of Friedland in their first time of trial let fidelity and zeal fall short, so gratifying is it to read that soon afterward a fair fruit of the faithful sowing and labor of their steadfast teacher showed itself. From the few reports which we have been able to find out about the later fate of the Friedland congregation, it appears, namely, that after Günther's departure a considerable number of members of this congregation left their earthly possessions and followed the Word of God, while many others, who remained in Friedland, refused all spiritual obedience to their imposed priest and from time to time attended divine service in the neighboring Lutheran places. The new priest wrote a paper in which he himself complains "that in the whole kingdom of Bohemia there are nowhere such stiff-necked Lutherans as at Friedland, whom their former preacher (Günther) had so firmly entangled that scarcely the tenth part of the citizens appear at his sermons on Sundays and holy days." It is remarkable that when in the year 1633 the plague raged here, the Catholic belly-serving priest himself, on account of it, fled from the town. To this was added that in the year following (on the 25th of February 1634) the Duke of Friedland, Wallenstein, hitherto so cruel an oppressor of the Lutherans, died by God's judgment at the hands of murderers, whereupon Friedland received a new lord in Count Gallas, under whose rule the Lutherans here were again supplied with faithful servants of the pure Gospel. Yet this high grace they enjoyed again only a short time, for since it was fixed in the Peace of Westphalia that in every place, as regards the exercise of religion and the possession of church property, it should be and remain as it had been there in the year 1624 (the so-called Normal Year), this conclusion of peace was of the saddest effect precisely for the church in Friedland, as in unhappy Bohemia generally. Not only were all Lutheran preachers now driven away forever, but all the other inhabitants also were given the choice, either to leave all their temporal goods and their home, or their religion, and to turn to the Roman antichristian church. Many therefore did indeed emigrate and forsook for Christ's sake everything that was dear to them of earthly goods, but the final consequence was that our Friedland lost the pure evangelical divine service forever.

May this sad history serve that those who possess the jewel of the pure doctrine and of the unhindered pure evangelical divine service may recognize what great things the Lord has done for them, guard against ingratitude and unfaithfulness, and use with honesty the exceeding grace which they enjoy. For woe to them that know not the time of their visitation! God's judgment must follow upon it; if it does not happen here in time, it happens in eternity. From this may God in grace preserve us, for Christ Jesus' sake. Amen! Amen!

"The Lord bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up again." 1 Sam. 2, 6.

The renowned Lutheran theologian Dr. Aegidius Hunnius (died 1603 at Wittenberg) relates of himself the following remarkable experience of the gracious government of God. When he was still of boyish age and attended the Latin school at Adelberg in Württemberg, he had indeed had many wicked boys for fellow students, but God out of great grace had preserved him from seduction to the sins of youth. When he once, for example, was sitting together with several of his schoolmates and carrying on a confidential conversation, one among others made mention of the sin against the Holy Ghost, which cannot be forgiven, neither in this world nor in that, as Christ says. These words, he said, had pierced his heart like an arrow; for because he had not known what the sin against the Holy Ghost really is, the devil had straightway whispered to him: What? If thou hast committed this sin? Sunk in the deepest sorrow, he had gone to bed on that day, but no sleep had come into his eyes, the whole night through he had wept, sighed and besought God that He would show him His mercy and raise him up with His comfort; not until toward morning had he, exhausted with weeping and sighing, slumbered a little, but soon after awoke again with so much the greater affliction and had gone with a troubled heart to his lesson. But behold! hardly had he seated himself in his accustomed place when he became aware of a book lying open before him, of which he did not know who had laid it there. The book was Johann Spangenberg's Margarita theologica (a string of pearls of Christian truths), and the passage which had at once met his eyes had contained precisely the answer to the question: what is the sin against the Holy Ghost? When he now had read here that to this sin, as the holy Augustine also testifies, belongs a persistent impenitence unto death, so that he who still feels the stirrings of repentance in his heart has certainly not yet committed this sin, he was overflowed with great joy, his temptation was gone in that moment, and he did not doubt in the least that that book had been laid in his place by God's special gracious guidance, that he might be rescued from his great distress of soul and preserved from despair.

Ecclesiastical Notice.

Whereas the candidate of theology, Mr. Rudolph Lange of Silesia, who had made his last theological-philological course at the seminary at Altenburg, had been regularly called by the German Evangelical Lutheran congregation of the Immanuel Church at St. Charles, Missouri, to be its pastor, the same was, on the 14th Sunday after Trinity, the 24th of September of this year, at his request, ordained and installed in his office publicly and solemnly in the midst of his congregation by the President of the Synod of Missouri, etc., with the assistance of Rev. Mr. Müller of Central Township, Mo. May the dear congregation, which has hitherto suffered unspeakably under the hands of United-Evangelical, rationalistic and Methodist preachers, now under the care of a preacher of its own confession build itself up so much the more gloriously, that every-