# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 06 26_S169
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall pass away nevermore."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 5.  St. Louis, Mo., June 26, 1849.  No. 22.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents. Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the Editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted.)

May a Christian Join the So-called Secret Societies?

A Conversation.

Paul. Good day, Carl! Well, how are you? What have you there in your hand, those gaudy silken rags? Why, look here! Those are the very regalia, as you call them, of the "Improved Red Men."

Carl. Yes, my dear Paul! We shall shortly have a great procession, and so I have now procured them; one must cut a bit of a figure on such occasions, and do honor to one's station!

Paul. Would to God we did more honor to our Christian station. So you are still with the "Improved"?

Carl. Yes, certainly, and I am so well satisfied with it that I have joined several other fraternal orders besides. I hope I shall persuade you also to join these excellent orders.

P. I join? From that may the dear God in His mercy preserve me! No, my dear Carl; I belong to One Brotherhood, and have for a long time. That one has my heart, and I am bound to serve it with body and soul and all my strength; and may the LORD forgive me that I wandered about so long in the blindness which men call enlightenment, and so shamefully broke my baptismal covenant. By God's grace I will now abide in it, since the LORD, according to His great mercy, has brought me round, and has given me repentance and faith in His holy name.

C. I cannot comprehend what you have against this truly holy brotherhood, which practices in deed and in truth that which the priests have now been preaching for 1800 years and the common crowd of Christians chatters about! Love! Love! In that everything consists! On that hang the law and the prophets! That is true Christianity, while everything else is mere idle talk! What can be more exalted and more divine; yes, wherein can the true Christian make known his genuine Christianity more, and more truly, than in the founding of such holy fraternal orders, which have set before themselves as their highest and proper aim to relieve misery of every kind, to tend the sick, to support the poor, to wipe away the tears of widows and orphans, and everywhere to appear like the merciful Samaritan, and to pour oil and wine into the wounds which the cruel hand of fate has dealt! You have always called me a fanatic! Yes, for this holy cause I am not ashamed to be fanatical. Truly, to see this divine idea of love now realized through a brotherly league, which will soon spread over the whole earth, and, breaking through all the barriers of priestly, narrow-hearted sectarian spirit, will embrace the noblest of the human family in the most intimate and blessed manner, the thought inspires me, and must inspire everyone in whose bosom a warm heart still beats.

P. Fiddle-faddle! Hollow phrases, and nothing more! I feel about as I would if I had had to take tartar emetic when I hear them; and I can only wonder how a man like you, who truly has come to know something better and more real in the school of our only LORD and Savior, could have been blinded by such false glitter!

C. That is priestly twaddle! They talk and condemn that way at random. Why do you judge about something of which you understand nothing? That is wrong. At other times money has not grown so fast to your heart; why do you not spend a few dollars on it and let yourself be admitted? You can withdraw again if you do not like it. I, too, heard such various judgments about these secret societies, and I had to consider it wrong that outsiders should pass sentence on them, since they know nothing at all about them. So I spent the money on it, and I do not regret it; on the contrary, I am so completely satisfied that no man can bring me out of it, whatever the priests may say.

P. My friend, you have become a mighty man indeed! The schoolmaster in your tribe must understand his business, since in so short a time he has taught you so well to abuse the "priests"! In the meantime, let this be told you: that the true Lutheran Church has no priests, but the right holy ministry, instituted by Christ Himself in His holy Church, to which the congregations in a free election call those who have previously pledged themselves to administer God's Word and His holy Sacraments according to His command and ordinance, as the same is set down in the Confessions, in conformity with the Word of God! To the men, therefore, who according to the churchly Symbols faithfully preside over the congregation, and do nothing else than that to which the congregation itself has called them, and has bound them by the call, we ought not to make their so heavy office and truly pitiable life still harder, by the shameful treatment which they for the most part must experience in our congregations. The members of congregations who do this revile themselves and draw down upon their own head the curse which God has threatened them with in His holy and infallible Word. For the sighing of these faithful men, so often shamefully tormented among the Germans, will not press in vain to Him who has set them in the office, and has given them the Word for their comfort: "He that despiseth you despiseth me!" I beg you therefore, give up your reviling, and take heed!

C. Well now, one cannot weigh every word in the gold scales; one sometimes lets a word slip out which one did not mean so seriously.

P. The Christian knows that he must give account for every idle word; and in particular I do not see at all how a member of such a holy brotherhood, in which "love, mercy" is always the third word, can be so unjust and unloving; but I see well, with you little folk the mercy-