# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 12 12_S59
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

59

Answer: Yes, provided the parents, after they have received the necessary instruction in the pure doctrine of holy Baptism, raise no objection to it, and provided one must fear that, in case the Lutheran pastor refuses, the children would not be baptized at all.

7. May the children from erring communions or from parents without any church be admitted to school?

Answer: Yes, provided the parents do not desire that their children be excepted from instruction in Biblical history and in the Catechism.

8. How is one to conduct himself when a congregation, after having at first not accepted its pastor on hire and for a term, afterward proceeds to a hiring of the same for a term, or when the congregation will no longer endure the administration of his office according to God's order in some or even in a single particular?

Answer: The reasons must be set forth to the congregation exactly, why a preacher and pastor cannot and may not let himself be hired for a term, and that such a course on the part of the congregation is an encroachment of worldly popular sovereignty upon the divine prerogative of the holy ministry; for although at present the call of the servant of the Church to be pastor at a particular congregation is only a mediate one and exercised through men, yet it is nevertheless a divine one; for according to Matthew 9, 38. the Father, as the Lord of the harvest, always sends laborers into the same; according to Ephes. 4, 11. the Son also always appoints "pastors and teachers"; according to Acts 20, 28. the Holy Ghost also places those immediately called into their office. From this divinity of the mediate call also, however, its lifelong validity naturally follows, for what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder, much less declare it dissolved beforehand after a certain term of time. And only then would this bond be loosed, when he falls either into false doctrine or offensive life, or into both, and in spite of the graduated admonition according to Matth. 18, 15-17. persists therein, or when the congregation would no longer have the administration of his office according to divine order in this or that particular, or when his congregation voluntarily yields him to another which desires him and where he can serve the Church still more effectively.

Should the congregation now accept no instruction, or give no heed to it, and persist in its carnal caprice of wishing to hire its preacher for a fixed time, then it is no Christian congregation, but a loose and godless rabble, and the pastor has then to leave it.

9. If a congregation wishes to join a synod which practices a course contrary to the confession, shall the preacher then leave it?

Answer: Yes! if the congregation after ge- course of action of that synod persist in its purpose.

10. But what if the congregation indeed would join no churchly synod, but would remain wholly without connection with any synod, yet also demanded of a synod holding the true faith the withdrawal of its pastor for his own person?

Answer: If the congregation, after thorough and friendly instruction, should insist upon its demand, then the pastor shall rather give up the congregation than withdraw from the synod, for otherwise he would not only make himself a servant of men and let himself be deprived of his freedom in a false manner, but at the same time indirectly deny the confession.

11. If the greater part of a congregation, evidently out of indifference toward the confession, wishes to join an unchurchly synod, may the pastor then form a new congregation out of the lesser, confession-faithful part of the congregation?

Answer: Yes, if all attempts to instruct the former to better things are fruitless, and the latter are firm and decided enough to desire his remaining for themselves.

12. Does regular house-visiting belong to faithfulness in office?

At the entering upon office the preacher shall indeed visit every family and see how things stand with the peace of the marriage, the training of the children, the family devotions, the household, the use of edifying books, etc. Thereafter, however, regular house-visiting may be omitted, especially when the announcement for confession has been introduced and the congregation is very large. It then suffices if the houses and families are visited more frequently where there are sick persons, and where such circumstances are present as make a special pastoral treatment necessary, for which perhaps the time at the announcement for confession did not fully suffice. An idle, so-called friendly visiting, as a standing habit, the pastor has in any case to avoid; for this he has neither office nor time.

In all house-visits, however, the pastor is to take pains to show himself not as a taskmaster, but as a father in Christ, so that, God willing, his sincere parishioners may gain as hearty a confidence in his person as they retain reverence for the office which he bears. Accordingly he has to guard, here and in other social relations, as for example at weddings, christening feasts, etc., that he neither forget the sanctity of his office and the importance of his example and perhaps even fall into worldly ways, nor assert in a domineering way a false official dignity, but let his speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, and as a householder, who is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, bring forth out of his treasure things new and old for the common profit.

concluded that each member of the conference keep a kind of official diary, in order to note therein important and difficult cases which may occur to him in the cure of souls and church discipline, together with the decision and settlement which they have found, either through the pastor concerned immediately, or mediately through the president or the conference or the synod itself. In this way valuable materials would then be collected toward an American Pastorale, especially if the other conference districts adopted the same procedure and a member of the synod qualified for it were commissioned to sift and arrange the accumulating material every year.

William and Jenny.

(A Narrative by Stöber.)

Whoever reads how much money in England is spent on the conversion of the poor heathen, marvels, as at the 5000 hundredweight of gold and the 10,000 hundredweight of silver which the princes of David gave for the building of the temple, and asks whence one in Great Britain gets the very great amount of money.

The narrator can tell him, and if the friendly reader will only go a few lines further with him, he will also learn that there one can make silver and ore out of sand and thistles, without the philosopher's stone or the Key of Solomon.

In a lane in London, where Babylon the Great gradually leaves off and the fields begin again, a boy sat and counted the 26 pence which he had taken for his scouring-sand from one hand into the other. Beside him stood his she-ass with lowered head and hanging ears. Against her leaned another boy, and gnawed with his good teeth at a rock-hard biscuit which he had received from a sailor or from some other kind hand.

Not far from there was a large house with high windows, into which just more people were going than into other houses where one only works or enjoys what belongs to the nourishment and necessity of the body. Nor did any man sit before or behind the door who would have demanded anything for admission.

Therefore the little donkey-driver thought, after he had put his ready cash back into his trouser pocket: "If it costs nothing, I too can go into the large house with the high windows and see what there is in it." And he said to his comrade with the biscuit, as though he were his servant-boy: "You, Tom, stay by my beast, and let nothing happen to it till I come back."

Tom also sat down on the pavement before the beast of burden and remained sitting there as long as he had his hard bread to deal with. But when he was done with it, he did not hold out much longer, but rose again and said to the she-ass: "Jenny, William has said, You