# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 10 17_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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best case he suspects, out of lamentable ignorance in this matter, Lutheran congregations which perhaps adopt those and similar ceremonies, as though they were infected with Popery and on the road to Rome. —

The statement of the reporter in the Lutheran Observer (and likewise in the Kirchenbote), that in Ann Arbor also old-churchly Lutheran ceremonies are in use, is moreover altogether false, since there, on the contrary, in spite of the Lutheran name, peculiar Reformed customs of worship are to be found, as for example in the distribution of the holy Lord's Supper.

The Horrors and Afflictions of the Thirty Years' War.

After we have given in the third number an example of the troubles of conscience and the religious oppressions which the Thirty Years' War brought in its train, we now let follow yet a description of the bodily distress which accompanied this dreadful war. The description is taken from a recent historical work. Therein it reads as follows:

Germany was still very rich at the beginning of the war, and the extortions could at first be carried out by ordinary acts of violence; meanwhile Wallenstein had levied such enormous sums that North Germany already in the first third of the war felt a great exhaustion. When Gustavus Adolphus appeared, the distress rose still more, because he too could maintain his army only at the expense of Germany, and an almost unbearable burden now fell also upon South Germany. The Emperor and the princes of the League*) had to impose the most painful sacrifices upon their lands likewise, in order to raise the means for the constantly growing costs of war. Most of the territories were exploited now by the enemies, now by the friends, and not a year passed in which, besides the ordinary taxes, considerable sums were not levied as war contributions. When, in consequence of this indescribable oppression, a complete exhaustion of Germany gradually made itself felt, the extortions could no longer be enforced by way of ordinary acts of violence. The armies therefore now raised the acts of violence to cruelty, in order to be able to exploit the people anew. A peculiar circumstance still further heightened the horrors.

When the nameless oppression approached ever more nearly the complete dissolution of society, when individual commanders even permitted their hired soldiers the plundering of captured cities, the citizens and peasants sought, namely, to save the remnants of their possessions in money, jewelry, or other valuable things by burying them in secret places. This was so frequently the case that later, through the accidental discovery of such objects, whose owners had taken the secret with them into the grave, the fraudulent trade of the treasure-diggers developed. The marauding soldiers did not remain wholly ignorant of that precaution, and they sought now to compel the people by terrorism (by terrors) to reveal hidden treasures. But since the afflicted did not readily give up their emergency penny, where they had actually hidden one, and so proved stubborn also under acts of violence, and since the robbers, moreover, often suspected treasures where there were none, and consequently could extort no confession, they gradually devised special torments, in order to wring such a confession from the peasants and citizens.

One should almost hesitate to relate the cruelties which now came into general vogue, for from this there results a new proof that the history of mankind is far more horrible than the history of the tigers and hyenas. In order, however, to convey an understanding of the time, and especially to be able to put the later events in the right light, we must do ourselves violence to touch upon the horrors more closely. Bereft of every human feeling, released from all the reins of discipline, the soldiery raged like wild beasts, and vied with one another in the invention of tortures to wring from citizens and peasants the confession of hidden treasures; to this end the limbs of their victims were mutilated by the cannibals, in particular ears and noses cut off, and even the breasts of nursing mothers, eyes put out, arms and legs crushed or hewn off. From the skin of the back they cut straps, as from leather, and into such wounds, as also into the slit soles of the feet, they strewed salt, in order to increase the pain to madness. In calculated progress of the torments they wished also to call disgust to their aid, and so poured liquid manure down the throats of the unfortunate. This kind of torture was used so frequently especially by the Swedes that it was commonly called the Swedish Draught.

The accursed cruelties were, alas! common to all the different armies, to the Swedes as to the Imperialists, to these as to the French. Already Gustavus Adolphus had in the last period of his life had great trouble in maintaining discipline in the armies. In the camp before Nuremberg he was so indignant over the acts of violence of his soldiers, and indeed of the nobles as well as of the common men, that he summoned the leaders of the Germans before him and crushed them with a terrible eloquence. Count Khevenhiller has preserved his angry speech, and from it one best perceives how greatly the demoralization of the army was already to be feared there:

"You princes, you counts, you barons, you noblemen!" said Gustavus Adolphus with flashing eyes, "it is you who show the greatest unfaithfulness toward your own fatherland; you destroy, ruin, and lay waste the same. You colonels, you officers from the highest to the lowest, none excepted, you are those who steal and rob, yea, you rob your own fellow believers; you give me cause to loathe you. God, my Creator, be my witness that my heart turns to gall within my body when I but look upon one of you. You are transgressors and criminals against the good laws and my commandments. You are to blame that it is said publicly: 'The King, our friend, does us more harm than our enemies!' My heart grows bitter, yea, my very bowels tremble, when I now hear the complaint that Swedish soldiers are held to be more shameless than even those of the enemy. But it is not Swedes, it is the Germans themselves who stain themselves with these excesses. Had I known you, you Germans, that you bear so little love and faithfulness to your own land, I would not have saddled a horse for your sake, let alone have staked my crown and my life for you. For your sake I have stripped my crown of its treasure and expended about forty tons of gold, whereas I have received from you and your German Empire not so much that I could have a pair of breeches made of it; yea, I would sooner have ridden without breeches than clothe myself with yours. I have given you everything that God put into my hands; I have not kept for myself a pigsty that I did not share with you. None among you has ever asked me for anything which I denied him; for it is my custom to refuse no one a request. If you would heed my command and order, I would have distributed all the conquered countries among you. I am, God be praised and thanked, rich enough, I desire nothing of what is yours, and if you were even to forget God, put your honor out of sight, or think to fall away from me and run off, the whole of Christendom shall yet learn that I have laid down my life for your cause, as a Christian king who desires to do the command of God, upon the field. But if you should even rise up against me, I will first lay about me with my Finns and Swedes against you in such a manner that the pieces shall fly. I beseech you for the sake of the mercy of God, go into yourselves, consider how you keep house and how you grieve me, so that the tears stand in my eyes. You sin against me by your bad discipline. Of your courage and your fighting I make no complaint, for in this respect you have always acted as honest and upright noblemen. I beseech you again, for the sake of the mercy of God, go into your heart and conscience, and consider how you shall one day give account of your doings before God's throne. It is so grievous to me among you that it vexes me to have dealings with so perverse a nation."

Such speeches made an impression, because they were spoken by a hero who through his lofty gifts of mind was the object of gene-

*) The League was the name of the whole body of the Roman Catholic confederates at the time of that war.