# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 11 28_S53
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

53

When in the class meetings one had much to tell of his experiences, the man referred to had still more. Sin seemed strange to him; indeed, he no longer considered himself capable of acting against the LORD. Most of all he liked to relate in the class meetings the course of his conversion, and that in the following manner: "I was," he began, "one day alone in my house, lying on my knees in prayer, and thought not to desist until the Holy Ghost should have entered into me, for I still felt that I was a sinner; then suddenly my room was filled with a wonderful light; I struggled and wrestled in such a way that anyone who had seen me would have taken me for insane, but the Holy Ghost entered into me at that time; and now I feel no sin, and also sin no more." So ended the unfortunate man. Yet: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked," says Paul, Gal. 6:7. Soon it was heard that the man's straw fire had gone out, and that he had ceased to regard himself as pure and holy, and on the contrary was beginning to hold himself the chief of sinners, and that, alas, in the sense of a Cain. About the same time the Methodist congregation held its "great church," to which, besides Mr. Riemenschneider, the head preacher, Mr. Diemer and Brakany had also come; the congregation celebrated the Holy Supper at the same time. To this the man who was sorely tried by his sins, Herbst (that is the name of the unfortunate man), was also to be invited; but he, when he had heard of it, wished to slip away, because he considered himself unworthy to partake of the Lord's table, and he knew well that without faith he would be eating and drinking judgment to himself.

But this objection, raised by the poor man, was not heeded. When the preachers saw that he was not willing to come, they drew him to the table of the LORD, under the pretext that the Holy Ghost would return through the enjoyment of the Supper. In this drawing and compelling "Brother" Diemer especially distinguished himself. And the poor man let himself be compelled. But when he had taken the morsel, it became quite otherwise with him. Tormented and racked by an inward unrest greater than ever before, he begged the preacher, who after the celebration of the Holy Supper was speaking to the congregation, to stop, and to pray for him and his family. When the latter would not listen to this, the former ran with distorted gestures out of the assembly, and like a madman toward the bush. The preachers, Mr. Peter included, left the congregation the next day, without troubling themselves much about the strayed little sheep, which had not yet returned, and which through their fault had wandered into the wilderness. When the unfortunate man had still not come home on the third day, he was sought by his family, and found. But only a short time did he remain in the house to which he had been brought back. At midnight, after some days, he again left his dwelling, and began, as before, his sad wandering; this time unhindered by his family. These, with the whole congregation, held that the unfortunate man was in the hands of Satan; and for that reason Mr. Peter probably thought it impracticable to dispense comfort from the Gospel to the anguished conscience. This holy duty of his he would not, as it seems, recognize. He therefore did not hesitate, like a coward who knows his inability against the enemy, to quit the field, at the very time when the wolf, by his own admission, already had a sheep in his jaws. But, dear God, with what could he have wished to rescue it? With what to raise up the broken spirit? To feeling, as he was accustomed to do, he could not point the poor man; that was just what condemned him; and to believe without feeling, Mr. Peter had not preached before, therefore it did not occur to him now to do so. He thus left the comfortless man wholly in the lurch.

This man, after he had again run about in the woods two days without eating and drinking, came to one of my congregation members, and begged before his house for food and shelter, where both were granted him. But here also he wanted after three days to be off again, in order to escape the tormenting spirits in whose power he felt himself; which would of course have been impossible for him, because he bore these in his own breast. In the anguish of his heart he asked for me. As soon as I had received word of it, I betook myself to him, to tell him of Him who is sent "to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives" (Isa. 61:1). When he caught sight of me, he overwhelmed me with questions, such as: whether I could help him; whether I had the Holy Ghost; whether he could still be saved, etc. After I had answered him these and like questions, I sought, with regard to the last-mentioned, to go more closely into the condition of his heart. Then he told me, in the presence of the inhabitants of the house, with weeping, that only now were his sins and their consequences, as the Methodist preachers had depicted them to him, quite clear before his eyes, and that he therefore saw on every side curse and damnation, but nowhere grace. At this he wrung his hands in despair. I now sought to turn him away from the opinion of the Methodist preachers, and also from that of his own heart, and to lead him to the Word. In doing so I set over against the greatness of his "double sins," as he called them and which he would not name, the greatness of the grace of God in JEsus. But unbelieving he turned his face away from me. And although most of the examples of divine grace and of the comforting passages which I cited were known to him, he would yet apply no word of life to himself. His words, which he repeated continually, were: "I am lost." And when I added: "by your own fault, if he will not take hold of what the LORD offers him for salvation," he began a howling so that it was impossible for me to speak any more with him. I prayed still with those present to the LORD for the unfortunate man, and thereupon left with a heavy heart the dangerously sick man. After some days I had to hear again that he, with the intention of never again coming alive before the eyes of anyone from his house, had run off into the woods. And he also, alas, kept his word. It would well have been possible to prevent it; but he could run about in the bush for days without being sought by his family, or his "pastor," Mr. Peter, showing a desire to bring the lost son back to the father. But of course, the unfortunate man's family consists of nothing but "converted Christians" (they belong, namely, to the Methodist church) and were thus pure; the father, on the contrary, saw nothing but sin in himself. For this reason, for the sake of their supposed holiness, children and wife tore asunder the bonds which had so closely joined them to the unfortunate man, and which bonds are held sacred even by a heathen. In the consciousness that his nearest friends had become his enemies, the lost man had been alarmed already earlier when he was told that he must go home.

After he had now wandered about some six weeks, restless and fugitive, as a warning and threatening example to the Methodists, he was at last found dead in the bush, leaning against a tree. Everyone was more shocked at it than those who had once stood nearest to him. Quite coldly they received the news of the death of the husband and father. The corpse, which was brought into the house that formerly belonged to them, was to be buried the next morning; also it was said that Mr. Peter, who was at that time in Sydney (a small town, 18 miles from here), would arrive for it and hold a sermon. The procession to the churchyard took place on the following day at the appointed time. Eager to hear what Mr. Peter would have to say at the grave of an unfortunate man whom he himself had plunged into misfortune, I joined the procession. Here I could indeed see the whole Methodist congregation, but read no grief over the shocking case before us on their faces; so that I found the lamenting words of the LORD confirmed here also: "But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear." Zech. 7:11. My desire to hear a sermon from Mr. Peter was not satisfied; soon I had to learn that he had not arrived. Before we had reached the burial place, I was therefore asked by all the Methodists, since their preacher had not appeared, to give an address; which I also promised to do. I spoke to the congregation, whose members had formerly belonged to the Lutheran Church, on Ps. 119:105: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet," etc.

On this occasion I showed the misled that they had departed from this Word,