# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 08 07_S196
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

196

in a house first the master of the house was seized with it and died after three days. Soon after, three of his children fell sick, a little maid of eight, one of five and a little boy of three years. The eldest little maid, when she was near to death, comforted her mother, who was then still well, with the presence of the gracious God, who had said: I am with him in trouble, etc., and began thereupon to say how soon she and her two sick brothers and sisters would depart, as also that the mother and the eldest son would indeed also fall sick, but recover again and be restored, but that to the youngest*), who lay at the mother's breasts, no harm should befall, which also came to pass afterward. The little maid of five years began, with an unusually clear and lovely voice, the hymn: Gott der Vater wohn uns bei, etc., and its three verses, as it is sung in the church, to sing quite distinctly, though one had never heard it from her, nor supposed that such a hymn was known to her, and therewith closed joyfully her temporal life. The little boy, as he lay in the agony of death, began with a serene and joyful countenance: Ah, mother, see! see! She: What then, my son? He: A golden chariot before our door. She: Who will ride in it? He: I, into heaven; which also soon after came to pass.

*) Although Scriver conceals the names in this narrative, it is nevertheless to be inferred from his life that he himself was this infant. For in this very year 1629, on the 2nd of January, Scriver was born, and in the same year his father, a respected citizen and merchant in Rendsburg, was carried off by the plague. His mother also, who was still nursing him, was at that time seized by the pestilence and mortally sick; but wonderfully the child was preserved and the mother likewise recovered.

Scriver relates further: We have experienced the like with joy in the year 1681, when the most gracious God, according to His most holy counsel, also chastised us sorely in this city (Magdeburg) with the rod of pestilence. I have observed that the gracious and longsuffering God, who willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he turn and live, hath commonly made the beginning, in a house which He had resolved to visit, with the children, and indeed with the youngest; when He had brought these to rest, He sometimes paused fourteen days, sometimes three or four weeks, that the grown persons might have time to prepare themselves repentantly for a blessed departure; but the young died in great numbers with joy and great assurance of heaven and of blessedness. We have had children who saw heaven open and laughed for joy, clapped their hands together and died with gladness. I will relate only one example, which is very remarkable. A little boy of nine years, a pious father's pious child, was in the time of pestilence always joyful, sang, prayed and praised God, to the great astonishment of his parents. One morning he had a vision, according to his own account, not in sleep, but waking; the bedchamber was filled with brightness, and there appeared to him a man, who called him by name, and said: Make thyself ready and pray, in fourteen days I will come again, and lead thee into the garden where these beautiful flowers grow. But he carried a basket which shone brightly, with exceedingly lovely and beautiful flowers, the like of which I, said the child, have never seen in my life. Ah! how I rejoiced over the brightness of the man and the beauty of the basket and of the flowers! Meanwhile he continued with his singing and cheerfulness, until on the eleventh day after such a vision he fell sick. On the last day of his temporal life, which was the fourteenth, he caused his mother to be called, thanked her heartily, and with a speech such as one would not otherwise expect from such a child, for all motherly love and faithfulness which she had shown him, for all the trouble which she had had with him, and especially that she had kept him at school and had let him learn the catechism and many psalms and sayings, wished her God's gracious recompense, commended her to God's protection and exhorted her that she should not grieve on account of his departure; he would now soon come into the garden where the beautiful flowers grew, of which he had told her fourteen days before; he begged her also to say to her clerk, whom he named by name: He thought, indeed, that with a good draught of wine, which he took daily with pleasure in good company, he would guard himself against the pestilence, but it would not help him, he must go along, therefore he should make himself ready, after seven days he would have to follow. Which also came to pass. Thereupon he laid himself on his bed again (for he had been speaking with his mother standing at the window), and soon after began to cry with a joyful countenance: Ah, behold, the shining man with his beautiful flowers is here! and fell asleep thus blessedly in the LORD, having tasted not death, but life.

(Contributed by Missionary Baierlein.)

Some Account of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of this Country, and of What Is Being Done for Them by the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

II. Thoughts of the Indians concerning their state after death.

"Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people."

Concerning the hard bondage of darkness in which the poor Indian heathen are held captive, I promised thee, dear reader, to make some further communications. Here I will now make a beginning of the fulfilment of my promise. That the poor heathen, and therefore the Indians also, know nothing of God, and therefore have confused notions also concerning their own existence, concerning the purpose of life and the cause of death, but especially concerning things which, beyond the limits of this temporal state, lie beyond the grave, this will surely not astonish thee, dear reader. For thou hast learned from the Word of God that thou also art by nature blind in the things that are of the Spirit and of God, and that thou owest thine enlightenment not to thyself and thy wisdom, but to God and His Word. For if God had not kindled for us the light of His Word, and in Christ had not let His glory itself appear to us, then darkness would cover all peoples, thee and me also; we should all sit in the shadow of death, without seeing the light of life, or even knowing of it. — But when heathen, with their foolish thoughts about things which yet lie beyond the range of the five senses, have formally grown together and are as it were ossified, this is indeed to be wondered at, and to be explained only by the influence of the power of darkness. As to our Indians, it is well enough known of them that they dream, even after death, of hunting-grounds, and of barter, and of feastings, etc., but how sure they are in this folly one can hardly imagine. Today I received some proofs of it. For I had in my sermon illuminated and refuted these and like follies of theirs by the Word of God. After the service there remained three men, among them the eldest of the horde, an old man of over 70 years, sitting. I provided them with tobacco, and so they began, smoking, a conversation with me. I asked the old man, in order to turn the talk to the sermon, how they actually conceive their state after death? The old man said: When the white men first came into this country, they settled on the bank of a river. One evening very many Indians came around them. The white men sought their friendship and therefore made them all sorts of presents; but none of the Indians would touch anything. At this the white people grew angry and threw their good things into the fire. But then the Indians leaped in, and fetched everything out. In this way the Indians took all presents from the white men, but nothing, unless out of the fire, did they take. — This curious answer astonished me, and I thought the old man had not understood my question. Therefore I said: That may well be, but I want now to hear nothing of this world, but how they conceive their state in that world. The old man put on a very earnest countenance and said: Mi saw iin, that is just it. There a Frenchman once had an Indian woman for wife. They lived well together. But when he was about to make a journey into the far West on account of his trade, he left his wife at home. When he came into the West, he saw a woman who was quite like his wife, and was shy of trading with her. But that was really his wife, who had meanwhile died and had come to the West faster than he. One evening very many Indians presented themselves, and brought the trader very good furs. The Frenchman did very good business, and