# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 01 23_S86
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

86

The Meaning and Significance of the Old German Church Architecture.

Ah, abide with us, LORD JESUS Christ,
For now the evening hour is come;
Thy Word, O LORD! the eternal light,
Let it not be quenched among us.
In this last and troubled time
Grant us, LORD, steadfastness,
That we may keep thy Word and Sacrament
Pure unto our end.

This good hymn of the blessed Nicolaus Selnecker was sung by the children and the teacher every afternoon at the close of the school hours in the infant school which I attended in my dear little native town, and therefore it impressed itself so deeply and powerfully upon me, with its content and its melody, that afterward on countless occasions I have heard it ringing and echoing in my heart. A hymn of this content comes to one most readily upon the sight of such a scene as I had on my travels when I was in Strassburg for the first time, and there beheld the glorious, mighty tower of the Minster with its church. At that time at least, when I was there for the first time (it was in the year 1820), one could still see everywhere on the sculptures above the doors the traces of the shameful devastations which the men of the Revolution had wrought here, as everywhere, upon the ornament and fabric of the temples of God. For the spirit and ground of such revolutions rests in a hatred of everything that is holy. It is not merely a murderous aversion to the person of the prince, hallowed by God, and to civil law and order, but it is the natural aversion of human nature, estranged from God, to God's eternal Anointed, to Christ, which moves and guides the hand of the rebels, who say they want freedom and equality for all, in their destructions. Therefore the men of the Revolution in France, as elsewhere, if the miserable weaklings had only been able, would right gladly have destroyed all churches and towers; for they could not bear anything that is high at all; yet the towers, like the old churches, have remained standing, and will probably remain standing still longer. But longer still, let the enemies rage against it as they will, will God's Word, "the eternal light" — "God's Word and Sacrament" — endure on earth; the Christian should only pray that it may never go out "among us" either, however much our fathers and we have thrust it from us and failed to know it. This inner kernel of Christianity is indeed the chief thing, yet it also has its shell, I mean that which our pious fathers, in a Christian spirit, built and visibly set to work, and this has its high significance. This holds especially of the old Christian church buildings which are called the old-Gothic, and of which such are still found in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Regensburg, and in very many other cities, indeed even here and there (on a small scale) in the country. That the reader may perceive in what understanding and meaning our Christian forefathers built their churches, I will today say something on this subject.

There are three gifts of grace of the Church which make a man a Christian: Baptism, Preaching, and the mystery of the union of the divine with the human nature, or the Lord's Supper. So also all such old churches are divided lengthwise into three parts. For when one goes in at the main entrance, which is always directed toward the west, so that he who enters, in remembrance of the eternal rising, may have the high altar before his eyes toward the sunrise, one comes first to the baptismal font, and generally into that part of the church which was dedicated to the holy act of Baptism and to the remembrance of the covenant of Baptism with God, by many outward signs. In the second part of the church stands (on the right) the pulpit; for this part is appointed for the proclamation of the Gospel, for preaching. Farther toward the east the last third of the interior of the church is for the most part separated from the second part by steps leading upward, often also by a metal latticework, and at the entrance from this to that stands the sublime image of the Crucified. That last, eastern third contains in itself the high altar, at which the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is celebrated. When such so-called old-Gothic churches are more completely and grandly built, one sees the interior supported and borne by twelve pillars, reminding of the twelve Apostles of the LORD; over the main entrance one sees three semicircles of figures, of which the one represents stories from the Old, the second stories from the New Testament, the third, however, the future Judgment. Over these semicircles there is also commonly seen a round window with colored glass, and these many-colored panes, so it is said, were meant to represent the various effects of one and the same eternal light in different human souls, just as the six altars, which are found, three and three, besides the high altar, at the sides of such old churches, and which thus together with the high altar make up the number seven, were meant to point to the seven churches or ages of the Church of which the Revelation of John speaks. Also in respect of height, it is said, these old church buildings were purposely divided into three parts, for the uppermost, in which the choirs for the singers (mostly hidden by lattices) are located, was to be the upper church, the triumphant; the actual floor of the church the militant; the burial vaults and crypts, however, which were beneath the floor, were to signify the suffering church, just as it is also said that the two towers at the main entrance represented, the one the visibly worldly, law-giving power, the other the spiritual power. Now though one or another of these interpretations may not appear quite certain, yet most of them are very probable, and so much is even certain, that our pious forefathers in all that they did and founded thought of God, and most of all when they built a church; whereas, when one considers many a newfangled church building of our day, it seems as if the builders had thought more of the theater, or of dancing and concerts, than of God, of the preaching of His Word, and of the celebration of His Sacrament.

As for the poet of the little, powerful hymn, "Ah, abide with us, LORD JESUS Christ," as regards Nicolaus Selnecker: he was born in the year 1532 at Hersbruck near Nuremberg, was then at Wittenberg a pupil of Melanchthon, and afterward became professor at Jena, and lastly superintendent at Leipzig. His motto was: "My salvation stands with thee alone." He died, 1592.

Dr. G. H. v. Schubert (Altes und Neues).

A Rare Doctor.

Among Luther's most intimate friends there was once also a physician, namely Doctor Matthäus Ratzenberger (died the 3rd of January 1559). This man, however faithful and diligent he was in his calling, and however earnestly he took it to heart to penetrate ever deeper into the science of medicine, yet by no means thought that theology and the affairs of the Church were no concern of a physician, but put many a theologian to shame by his diligence in searching God's Word and Luther's writings, and by his zeal in serving his own household as bishop, and the Church in general, and in bearing witness for the truth and against error. This naturally aroused in him also much envy and many enemies. When he was once asked why he, as a physician, concerned himself so much with matters of religion, he gave the fine answer: "I am not baptized in the name of Hippocrates and Galen (ancient teachers of medicine), so they will not stand by me either when I shall come to die. They serve me and others for this life, so long as God wills; but when this life ceases, something else and higher belongs thereto, if one is to be saved and live eternally. And what I do and can do in religion and the Church, that I do not without a calling; I have calling enough; for in Baptism I vowed to my LORD Christ to promote His service most faithfully. Therefore I have been drawn also, time and again, into the religious controversies. How, then, can I keep myself from speaking in matters of religion and the Church? Much less can I keep silence when I must hear such things as are contrary to the truth."

Go thou, dear reader, whatever calling thou mayest have, and do likewise. If thou art baptized, thou art also one of that priestly people whose duty it is to show forth the praises of Him who hath called it out of darkness into His marvelous light.