# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 05 15_S149
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

149

Of a pulpit hymn scarcely a trace is found in the older church orders; only a few prescribe hymns at this place, especially for the festival days, such as: "Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist," "Es woll' uns Gott genädig sein."

The hymn after the sermon is found in most of the church orders, and indeed, when Communion was held, only as the conclusion of the service of the Word; hence the uniform provision that this hymn should "suit the sermon"; accordingly it was not to constitute already a preparation for Communion, for which a special beginning was prescribed.

At the close of the whole service, and especially after Communion has been held, only one half of the church orders have the hymn sung, "Verleih uns Friede gnädiglich" (the German version of the Da pacem) or "Erhalt' uns, HErr, bei deinem Wort"; the other half of the church orders have it close with the Benediction only.

Among the other, more frequently used pieces of song, apart from those which occur in connection with Communion, belongs the Litany, which word, according to its derivation, signifies a humble and suppliant entreaty; it contains individual petitions put into short sentences, which the minister of the church recited and to which the congregation responded with the Kyrie eleison. It has its foundation in 1 Tim. 2, 1. ff.: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions" etc. Already in the second century the Litany, as the general prayer of the church, had its place in the Greek and Roman Church between the sermon and the celebration of the Lord's Supper. In content, though not in words, the Greek Litany agrees with the Roman and the Lutheran, and the form which it still has dates from the sixth or seventh century; for it begins with the Kyrie eleison and closes with it; at the close it also takes up the "Agnus Dei" or the "Christe, du Lamm Gottes," strings together a certain number of related petitions, and adds a suitable cry of prayer, such as: "HErr, erbarme dich," or: "Behüte uns," etc. In this form Dr. Luther translated the Litany from the Latin into the German language, naturally omitting everything that related to the worship of saints and the like; thus it appeared first in the year 1529 and from then on was used in all Lutheran churches, and indeed, after the model of the ancient church, as the church prayer belonging to the congregation for the whole of Christendom. Therefore the Litany, according to Dr. Luther's direction (X, 1758.), was sung by two choirs, or one or two choirboys intoned the petitions and the congregation answered, and in this latter manner it was originally sung in most places, to which the practice that the preacher intoned and the choir answered formed only a transition and never became permanent; but nowhere does it occur in the Lutheran Church that the preacher read the Litany aloud. With regard to the churchly use of the same, the church orders determine in general the following: It is to be sung by the congregation, as the general church prayer, on all Sundays and festival days in the chief service, when, namely, there are no communicants present, after the sermon; besides this, at least once in every week, either in the Saturday evening or the Sunday vespers, or after a weekday sermon, as also on the appointed days of prayer; each time there followed an intonation with a prescribed collect of petition and the Amen; moreover, several church orders, e. g. the Pomeranian, permit the preachers "according to the occasion of the time and need to shorten some verses in the Litany or also to add and alter"; from this the manifold variations in the form of the Litany are to be explained.

(To be continued.)

Description of a Plague.

Friedrich Schatz, formerly deacon at Schweidnitz, has furnished in his "Noth und Trauerstand der Stadt Schweidnitz" a vivid description of the dreadful plague which raged there in the year 1633. — For at that time the united Swedish-Saxon-Brandenburg and the imperial army under Wallenstein lay around the city of Schweidnitz, which was thereby in the midst of both hostile armies, and was in the hands of the Swedes. A great multitude of country people had fled into the city, whereby the misery became only the greater. Of this Schatz now relates as follows:

"In the Ring and all the streets of the city a wretched howling and wailing was heard by day and by night. One cried for bread, another for a drink of beer or water, and whatever other such cries of lamentation there were. Many of them, whose heads the heat had seized, ran about the city in their bare shirts with such unruly howling that it might have moved a stone in the earth to pity. There lay, partly dead, partly people struggling with death, one upon another in heaps in the streets. Especially about the Striegau Gate before the castle there was such a mass and multitude of dead bodies to be seen, as if a great skirmish had taken place there a few days before. And to say nothing of the other narrow streets, in the Ring, and also in the chief streets of the city, the corpses have had to lie unburied for 3, 4, 6, 8, and even 14 days, for want of gravediggers. In the Ring, by the guardhouse, a coffin with a corpse stood a full fourteen days, until at length the poison of the swollen corpse burst the coffin open, not without singular horror and loathsomeness. Besides, there lay everywhere many dead bodies, so that at last one had hardly room left to go beside them, but had even to step over them. How one must feel in such a case, every reasonable person will easily judge. The cloister walk lay full of sick, dead, and those struggling with death, one upon another, dreadful to behold; so that some hundred persons died therein. Because the herring and flat-cake bakers' booths about the town hall lay full of dead, they were wholly cleared out, so that no more sick might lay themselves down therein. Because also the plague and mortality at last so far got the upper hand that on some days 150 to 200, and especially on the 25th of August over 200 persons died in the city, it was proclaimed by beat of drum that all soldiers should betake themselves out into the camp, and avoid the city on account of the great dying and stench.

In the apothecary's shop almost nothing was to be had, and what was still on hand could not be prepared, seeing that the grim plague spared not even those who daily handled the medicines that otherwise serve against the poison. Without doubt, humanly speaking, many hundreds of persons would have been kept alive if they had had necessary and suitable medicines at hand. But there was a lack of physicians, of medicines, of laborants in the apothecary's shop, yea, almost of everything that was needed and ought to have been had. From morning until evening there was such a throng about the dispensary that many a one had to wait half a day and longer, and yet often had to go back without medicine. At times, within two days, as many as 3 or even 400 prescriptions had piled up, whereas hardly one person was to be found in the apothecary's shop to whom it was possible to make everything ready. So it came to pass that the swift poison seized the heart of many of them, and even struck them down, before the prescriptions were so much as handed in at the dispensary, to say nothing of being prepared. That was a misery which cannot be forgotten. —

From the council and the bench of aldermen about nine persons were swept away by the plague. The organ in the parish church could not be played at divine service for several weeks in succession, because of the deadly departure, decease, and want of these skilled persons. At the school all the colleagues died, so that at last scarcely anyone could have his own buried to earth with the customary funeral ceremonies: in sum, it had the appearance as if it were all over with the whole city of Schweidnitz, and the merciless destroyer of men were to spare no man. Whence also everyone despaired of his life, and every hour and moment expected death, so that everything looked quite lonely, sad, and troubled. —

No certain number could be had of those carried off by famine and plague. Fourteen thousand, indeed, were found, of those who were noted and reported by the gravediggers, but at the very least as many corpses again have been buried secretly by their kin in the gardens before and in the city, as also in the entrenchments. For since in the city there could not be gravediggers enough, each one the