# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 12 12_S61
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

61

was and what she was called, so that he might enter the names of the kind givers correctly in his lists and in his accounts.

"These persons," answered the little friend of the heathen, "are we, my Jenny there and I, William Brown." And he went on to tell how they had both helped together faithfully until the little linen bag had become full, which would have happened even sooner if he had not once paid the doctor and the apothecary out of it for his sick mother.

The man in the black suit thanked him in the name of God and gave him a little book in which there was written far more about the heathen and their helpers than William had heard from him a year before in the great house. But in the chapel, at the close of his address, he held the filled little bag high aloft and told the assembly, to William's memory, what the feeble boy, awakened by the LORD his God, had done.

A rich merchant, however, who was accustomed every year to give a hundred pounds and more for the poor heathen, smote upon his breast as the assembly dispersed, and said within himself: "This man hath cast more into the treasury than we all have cast in, for they all have cast in of their abundance; but this man of his poverty hath cast in all that he had."

(Communicated.)

A Word in Particular to my Westphalian Countrymen in North America.

Dear Brethren! Christians everywhere are in danger of missing the right way and of straying from the eternal fountain of truth, the infallible Word of God, but greater than anywhere is this danger here in this our new fatherland. Here, alas, false teachers of every kind appear in such deceptive form that even those may easily be deceived who in our old fatherland walked as the most faithful Christians and stood in the best knowledge. How easily even those who wish to remain true to their dear mother church may here, without themselves suspecting it, become unfaithful to her; of this I, the undersigned, have myself become an example. Out of love for my brethren, and as a warning to them, I will therefore here communicate something from my experiences. I was prepared for years for the American ministry, and in this the confessional writings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were laid as the foundation by my teachers. — My resolve was therefore, when I came hither half a year ago, to serve this my church and her alone. To be sure, I was recommended by dear men in the old fatherland to the so-called "Evangelical Church Association of the West" here; but this surely happened not in order to make me unfaithful to my church here, but in the opinion that the said Association had the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as its foundation. For in Westphalia in most congregations men confess no other doctrine than that which is composed, according to the infallible Word of God, in the small and large Catechism of Luther and in the unaltered Augsburg Confession. So, with good intention, I joined the Evangelical Association here. But soon my eyes were opened. From the very outset it was suspicious to me that the Association had prepared a new catechism, in which its normal doctrine was said to be contained; yet at first, on a hasty glance into it, I thought that it contained nothing other than the Lutheran Catechism and merely had a different outward form and arrangement. — But after I had examined this "Evangelical" Catechism more closely, I found with horror and grief that it lets no trace be seen of the purity of the doctrine of our Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Evangelical Association evidently regards itself as called to bring a wholly new system of doctrine upon the scene. It is bent on playing out of the hands of our youth in America the dear, precious Catechism of Luther, which has nourished us and our fathers with the milk of pure doctrine; for no other necessity can have called the new catechism into life.

After God, together with my dear congregation, had now opened our eyes to this, I felt constrained in my conscience to separate myself with my congregation entirely from the Evangelical Church Association. I could not possibly exchange my dear, worthy Lutheran Catechism for the Evangelical, for by that I would plainly have shamefully denied my faith. I do not deny that the Association here and there also has a morsel of Lutheran doctrine, but everything is so much leavened with the leaven of the Reformed doctrine that in many doctrinal propositions one does not know whether one should interpret them as Reformed or as Lutheran. This the new Evangelical Catechism is now indeed to decide, but to this also applies what the LORD says in Luke 5:36-39: "No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old," etc. For me and for other Evangelical Lutheran Christians there belongs especially the 39th verse: "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better"; that is, no one who has something old that is better will desire the new that is inferior instead of the better, much less that which is mixed with the poison of false doctrine instead of the pure and unadulterated. May the merciful God, who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth, grant that very many may be warned also by my example, not to let themselves be enticed away from their dear Evangelical Lutheran Church by the name "Evangelical," or otherwise be caught by the enthusiasts and sectarians here. Such persons act as the most faithless souls not only against their church, to which they have made the vow of fidelity in a holy place, and thereby against Christ, the Head of the church, but also against their children, from whom they withdraw the pure, unadulterated bread of life, and offer them instead a substitute which will sooner dispense death than life to their souls.

New Bielefeld on the Bellefountain Road, St. Louis Co., Mo., the 22nd of Nov. 1848.

Carl Schliepsiek.

For the sake of certain circumstances the undersigned permits himself to communicate to the dear readers of the "Lutheraner" also the following letter, addressed to the United Evangelical Pastor, Mr. Ries, as a proof of his completed withdrawal from the local Church Association, and thereby from the United Evangelical Church, and of his return into the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the unaltered Augsburg Confession:

Most Honored Pastor!

After my last conversation, which I held with you with regard to the small Lutheran Catechism, which has been introduced here as the congregation's catechism, and concerning which the congregation has declared decidedly that it could not exchange it at any price for the Evangelical one, which is used in your Evangelical congregations, I have since examined myself repeatedly and thoroughly according to the doctrine of the Lutheran Church in her confessional writings, and in consequence, as a duty of my conscience, I must confess and hereby testify that I can accept the confession of the Lutheran Church only as my confession in teaching and learning; and indeed for these reasons, because such confessional writings are not only drawn from the pure fountain of the infallible divine Word, but also and especially because they have proved themselves as a true foundation, approved through centuries amid the most fearful storms and hostilities on the part of the false teachers, so that one may well join in the proverb: God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall pass away now and nevermore. You see, then, Mr. Pastor, that I should act against my conscience if I were unwilling to remain upon the ground of the pure Lutheran confession. For such reasons I also, according to my knowledge and conscience, cannot bring myself to exchange the Lutheran Catechism in instruction for the Evangelical. Since I, with the congregation here, under such a confession can of course henceforth no longer be regarded, according to your declaration, as belonging to the Evangelical communion, I will not regard this as a wrong. For the rest, I am and remain, with all esteem, your obedient Carl Schliepsiek.

Some Rules for Bible Reading.

(From the "Pilger aus Sachsen." Year 1846.)

Read diligently in the Holy Scripture.

To a Christian, properly, no day ought to pass in which he does not something out of the Word of God