# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 01 23_S87
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

87

"It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

In the time of the Thirty Years' War there lived in Burg a pastor's widow. A few months before she had lost her husband and all her goods and possessions, when, trusting in God's guidance, she set out to seek a refuge with relatives in Magdeburg. On the way — it was shortly before the destruction of Magdeburg — she was seized by Tilly's horsemen, and one of them, who seemed to recognize her, said to the others: Kill her, she is a priest's wench. But one said: Leave her to me, I will do it. The rest were content, and so he led her aside, and then suddenly spoke to the terrified woman in a quite unexpected tone: he had already committed so many murders in the war that his conscience would give him no rest; if, then, she was a priest's wife, she could surely tell him whether there was still forgiveness for him with God? She answered him with a word of comfort from Holy Scripture, that every sinner who truly repents finds grace with God. Whereupon he said: if she would say that to him, he would bring her safely to Magdeburg; and he did so.

God's Word Must Come Back into the Houses.

"When I took over my second charge — so relates a pastor — there lived in one of the filial villages an old man who was held in the congregation to be an oddity, and who also had the peculiarity that he addressed everybody as thou. Once, when I came out of the church and in my own opinion had preached with all warmth and earnestness, the old man came up to me and said: Thy preaching profits thee nothing, and when I asked why not, he answered: So long as God's Word is not read in the houses, it will not be heard in the church either. And when I asked him what I should do about it, he said: Thou must preach on family devotions until the people begin to hold family devotions. And when I had preached the sixth time on Col. 3, 16. 17., he came again and said: Now leave off, it has already helped. The church soon filled, and here and there the seed sprang up."

Pott Gets Nothing! or the Dividing of Estates by the Communists.

The following conversation was held, as the sender, to whom it has been told several times, can vouch, by a pastor with a member of his congregation at the time of the French Revolution, when it was heard in Germany that in some parts of France the noblemen and landowners had been driven from their estates, and the peasants had divided them among themselves, and paid no more tithes, and the like. It shows in quite a plain way what many people would think of the dividing of estates if the same were to be introduced in their own circumstances.

Peasant: Have you heard, Herr Pastor, how things are going now in France?

Pastor: God have mercy, there all divine and human order is trodden under foot.

B. It is not so bad as that, Herr Pastor; the poor people are only being helped to their rights, and the nobles and landowners must give up what they have usurped.

P. My dear neighbor, what the nobles and landowners have in fiefs and estates, their forefathers obtained in a lawful way, either for services which they rendered, or for money, and it is surely wrong to take from their children what they have inherited from their parents.

B. Herr Pastor, the peasants must do the work, therefore the land also, and the blessing it brings forth, fairly belongs to them! Are the noblemen better than we?

P. I do not believe that this new French arrangement would please you, if it were introduced among you also.

B. Surely, Herr Pastor. I wish it were so with us too! How we should all be helped if the manor lands were divided, and the fine meadows, and we need pay no more tithes! How I should rejoice if it would soon begin among us. I should surely get the most, for I have the biggest farm.

P. But what if the little people were to do with you peasants as you intend to do with the lords of the manor? — If, for instance, Pott, your first mower, should say to the others: Do you know what, men, we have to do the work for the master anyhow, so it is fair that we also take his field for ourselves. I take the Nagelbohr and the long Twenty (the two best pieces of land of the peasant), for I have been longest on the farm.

B. (quite eagerly): No, Herr Pastor, Pott gets nothing!

P. Do you see now? What is right for the one is fair for the other.

The peasant said nothing more about the dividing of estates. Whether, however, he has given up the wishes in his heart is, of course, another question. (Volksblatt.)

Boasters of Reason and Toleration.

The famous German poet Goethe has borne a testimony against those named in the heading, such as one would hardly expect from him. All the more should those concerned lay this testimony to heart. It reads as follows:

"There is nothing more wretched than to hear people ceaselessly talking of reason, while all the time they act solely from prejudices. Nothing lies so near their heart as toleration, and their scorn of everything that is not of their opinion proves how little peace one has to hope for from them."

Deut. 27, 26.

We keep all the commandments of God when all that we do not keep is forgiven us.

St. Augustine.

Warning.

Just now, as this number is about to be closed, there has come into our hands the little book announced in No. 25 of Volume IV of the "Lutheraner": "Hübner's Biblical Histories from the Old and New Testaments, edited by C. G. Weyl, preacher at the Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church in Baltimore," and editor of the so-called Lutheran Kirchenbote. It grieves us deeply to be compelled hereby earnestly to warn against this edition of the good old faithful Hübner all those who do not wish their children to be poisoned early with the venom of the most abominable false doctrine and of the most insipid prattle about reason and virtue. For Mr. Weyl has shamefully broken his promise to have the book reprinted "in its old unaltered form and substance," and (we hope from ignorance) has had reprinted an edition of the Hübner shamefully made over by a Rationalist. In the next number we intend to lay before our dear readers the proofs for this our assertion.

☞ Reminder to Those Concerned.

Those who, during the last Synodical convention, took one or more of the shares in question are urgently requested to send the amount as soon as possible to the undersigned. F. W. Barthel.

Report of World Events.

The dear readers, who perhaps do not much concern themselves with political newspapers, will be eager to know what has lately happened in the world. We can be brief. In Germany the time of popular rule seems, at least for the present, to be over. In Vienna the so-called party of freedom has received the most severe blow. The Emperor, or rather the victorious court party, has taken terrible revenge upon its adversaries; hanging and shooting have been the order of the day there of late, indeed scenes are related which do not fall short of the most dreadful atrocities committed in the Thirty Years' War. From Vienna a mighty army has set out to chastise the rebellious Hungarians. What has happened there is not yet known, but it is hardly doubtful on whose side the victory will be. According to the latest reports, Emperor Ferdinand has laid down his crown and placed it on the head of his nephew of eighteen years, Franz Joseph.

Encouraged by the turn of the Vienna affairs, the King of Prussia also has taken energetic measures; he transferred the Reichstag from Berlin to Brandenburg, had the refractory part of the Reichstag driven apart by soldiers, the civic guard of Berlin disarmed, and the city placed in a state of siege. Hitherto everything has gone off without bloodshed, the counter-efforts of the democratic party remained without success, and the well-to-do middle class seems, if not from love of the King, yet from fear of anarchy, to submit to the King's will. To satisfy his people the King has lately made known a constitution of his own choosing, which is said to be most liberal and to secure to the subjects political and religious liberty.