# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 01 09_S76
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

76

diers, all of which we bore patiently and committed to God. When we had now come somewhat out of the throng, and so out of death again into life in some measure, the colonel asked and said: Woman, I have saved the life of you and your husband, what can you now give me? We answered: We had buried our property in money and silver, hoped it would not be found so easily, that should be his, otherwise we knew of nothing more in the world. With that he was content. When we had now come a little farther out, there stood some officers who looked upon us as poor prisoners, and one said to me: Ego tibi condoleo, nam et ego addictus sum Augustanae Confessioni, that is, I have compassion with you, sir, for I am also an adherent of the Augsburg Confession; but I dared not answer him for fear. And herewith we came to our colonel's tent, situated before the Rothensee wood, where a silver cup of wine was then offered us. Toward evening the dear Mr. T. Olvenstädt was brought also by our cook on a wagon, ah God, so wretchedly and pitifully mangled that we did not know him except by his speech; he had bled so, that toward night he fell into a swoon, so that we thought nothing else than that he would depart from us; I comforted him as much as I could, as he then also on the following day, when the turn came to me also, is said to have addressed me in Latin with consolation during my great sickness, of which I can indeed know nothing; but he recovered again. We laid a coat under him, we were also bandaged and waited upon one another as well as we could.

Late in the evening my wife and I had to go with the others to the meal; everything went on splendidly enough, but neither food nor drink tasted good to us. The colonel said: Woman, why will you not eat? She answered him and said: Colonel, if you were only for a quarter of an hour in my place, your appetite would surely pass. Nevertheless the Colonel did me this honor, that he set me over his mass-priest, who had commanded that they should curb me. He was a young fellow and otherwise a rude beast; I spoke Latin with him, he should offer a collect for me, but he went away and said: Dicam; so that the servants said: Did I wish to speak Latin with him? He knew no Latin. And indeed he could not have forgotten much of it. After the meal was ended there was no one who prayed, neither the sacrificer nor the priest, although it would have been his office.

In the morning our colonel sent some of his servants together with our maid into the city to bring our promised ransom money, since the maid knew where it stood; but they came back and did not bring it, with the pretext that the cellar was still full of fire, so that they could not get in; whether it was so, I cannot know. —

(From the further diary of that pastor of that time it is afterward reported how he, namely, with God's help, through the mediation of that imperial colonel was brought away, conducted into Holstein, and after some time called again to a new pastorate at Rendsburg. He concludes, after he had also recovered from a severe illness, with the words: "God be praised and thanked, that it grew better with me from day to day, and that in the name of the highly praised Trinity I could begin the first year of my ministry here. May the Most High God grant His gracious increase to such planting and watering of mine, for Christ's sake! Amen!")

Church News.

The two congregations served by Pastor Husmann, the one in Allen, the other in Adams County, Ind., have regularly called Mr. Andreas Fritze of Württemberg, hitherto a pupil at the seminary at Fort Wayne, to the position of assistant preacher established by them. In consequence, he was, after a well-passed examination, ordained by the Vice-President, with the assistance of Pastors Husmann and Jäbker, on the 2nd Sunday in Advent, 1848, before both congregations, and inducted into his office. May the Lord of the harvest now lay a double blessing upon the labor of two servants of the Word.

(Communicated by S.) On the 18th of October of last year the church of the Ev. Luth. St. John's Congregation at Schaumburg, Cook Co., Ill., formed under Pastor F. A. Hoffmann, was dedicated. The sermons appropriate to the occasion were delivered by Pastors Selle and Brauer. Likewise these two had the joy, on the last second Christmas holiday, of dedicating the little church of the Ev. Luth. St. Peter's Congregation at Elk Grove, Cook Co., Ill., likewise formed through the zealous efforts of Pastor Hoffmann and now served by Pastor W. Klein. Both congregations are in a gratifying condition and entitle us to the fairest hopes. May the LORD cause the seed of His Word preached there to spring up and bring forth glorious fruit! — Scarcely three years ago there was in that region not yet a trace of the dear Church to be discerned, and already four servants of the Church are laboring in a circuit of thirty miles with great blessing, whose number will presumably be doubled in two more years. God be praised, who causes His light to break forth again everywhere!

From Germany.

The news concerning the influence of the revolution, and of the transformation of conditions in the old fatherland brought about thereby, upon the Church, grows ever more distressing. Among others a dear brother in office from the neighborhood of Hamburg writes to us, under date of the 9th of October of last year, as follows: "At that time, when you dear Saxon brethren departed, we could not reconcile ourselves to it, and you yourselves have probably been perplexed over your going away. Now, indeed, it looks quite as if you had had to go on before in order to prepare there a lodging for the Church, in case she should be driven out of Germany. It is turning toward the latter in our days. Whatever people may say and write about freedom and the separation of Church and State, they show soon again that it is not so meant; that they indeed desire freedom for all godless sects, but would place the Church with her Confession and cultus (order of worship) under the 'majority of the sovereign people'; will tolerate only schools as State institutions, none any more as institutions of the Church, etc. It is known that only when the Church and her schools are put out of the way have revolution and communism unbound power and free play. In the Germany of the present, anarchy and lawlessness are worst in the regions from which formerly the strongest emigrations of the church-minded took place: Silesia, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Altenburg," etc. Another correspondent from Mecklenburg writes: "It is not to be told how far estrangement from God has gone among us. One cannot say that the revolution, like the first French one, has been blasphemous (God-reviling), but under the negatively good appearance there hides a never-before-seen ignoring (wilful ignorance) of the Divine. In the Preliminary Parliament at Frankfurt, when it was opened, they at least rose from their seats in order to show due reverence to the God of whom Franklin (!) is said to have said: Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it. But when in the National Assembly in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt the Bishop of Münster made the motion that a religious service be held before the beginning of the proceedings, the word of the deputy Raveaux: Help thyself, and God will help thee, was stormily applauded (not indeed by all the members, yet without any serious word of reply having been spoken). The name of God has vanished not merely from the heart of a great part of our people — it has also vanished from their lips. What has the Church to expect when the rage of the spirit of the age shall first turn against her as a reactionary power. Yet the Church has nothing to fear, for when she is once nailed to the cross, her resurrection is not far off. While Germany is being churned up by such storms, you in America enjoy blessed peace. Your land will become more and more a Pella for the Church of the pure confession despised in Germany. O so may the LORD, who is her Head, bless all your labor at her upbuilding. Perhaps you were called to rescue her sanctuaries across the sea. In the One and His One truth, Thine D."

Domestic Correspondence.

It is an experience often already made by Christians that the enemies of the truth, when they publicly threaten the confessors of the same with terrible