# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 08 21_S202
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

202

hand of a truly not slight danger, yet continued our way to the next house, where divine service was to be held, with quite peculiar feelings. I could not help remembering the word of our LORD: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves!" And what if many such people were here, or even all of them of the kind of that man! But the LORD soon refreshed again our frightened hearts, in that on the very same evening we became acquainted with some families whose desire for preaching and Sacrament, as well as the degree of their Christian knowledge, could only rejoice us most deeply. On the next day Herr Stubnatzy preached before a moderate assembly on Ps. 119, 92: "Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction," and one saw the joy shine from many an eye at being able to hear God's dear Word once more. Thereupon I sought to remove some scruples of the people, namely concerning the support of a pastor, which, with God's help, I soon succeeded in doing. Only the regular call of the preacher, against which some of the dear people, yet without any ill will, brought forward the customary false grounds, made it doubtful for some hours whether a field would really open here to our labor. But at last the very weakest in this matter confessed of their own accord that they themselves could not let themselves be hired for a certain time like servants of men, if they were fit for the holy office. And so a lawful call was signed by 12 heads of families. Since for some time there had been a great desire for the Holy Supper, and a number of children were to be baptized, I had to ordain Herr Stubnatzy at once, however unwillingly I did this alone. It did me heartfelt good to hear from certain individuals: "It has not pleased us here as yet, but now we would gladly be in America, that we have God's Word. Our daily bread have we long had." May the LORD also confess Himself there to His Word, to the glorification of His holy name. The South Germans seem, out of sheer national pride, to have kept themselves wholly aloof until now; yet the LORD will surely draw to Him also the more honest among them.

The commission of the Synod, to visit the settlements in northern Wisconsin, whither Candidate Volkert was assigned, I could not carry out so quickly, since after my return from Fort Wayne I had to await the next congregational meeting and also first of all to go out into the country congregation. Herr Volkert stood faithfully by me in the laborious time with preaching, school-keeping, etc., and in particular filled my place during my absence on the journey to Wisconsin. On the Monday after Dom. VI. p. Trin. I began the same, favored by the most glorious weather, on one of the splendid steamboats of the upper lakes, tarried the next night with dear Brother Keyl in Milwaukee, and embarked the day following for Sheboygan. This quickly flourishing little town lies very pleasantly at the northwestern end of Lake Michigan. An active people there, who know how to turn to account the good opportunities of a newly settled region. But how sad and desolate is it there with regard to the striving after the One thing that is needful! Not even a trace of hunger and thirst after the righteousness that avails before God is perceptible: in the whole town, which counts well over 3000 souls, I could not discover so much as One church building. Among the numerous Germans I became acquainted only with Indifferentists and Rationalists. The German Methodist missions have indeed made an attempt to carry on their work there; but they seem rather discouraged. May God have mercy upon the poor people and soon begin His work among them! — On Wednesday I set out on the way into the interior of Wisconsin, after I had previously sent word to the settlement lying nearest Sheboygan, partly by word of mouth through a man from the neighborhood, partly by a letter which I entrusted to the care of the innkeeper, that on the return journey on the next Monday evening I intended to call upon them and to hold divine service. From Sheboygan to Calumet, the actual goal of my journey, it is scarcely 30 miles; but as roads are still lacking, I had to go by way of Fond du Lac, so that fully 54 miles had to be covered. On this route too the roads are still so strewn with tree-roots and stones that I with my traveling companion arrived only toward evening of the following day, thoroughly bruised and battered, in Calumet at the house of my dear relatives. My cousin, the president of the church council there, had gone on account of ill health to a physician at Neu-Holstein, 12 miles distant from there. Since I hoped to obtain from him for the present the best information about the congregation, I waited until Saturday morning, but in vain, for his return. During this time I looked about me at the truly paradisiacal region: a prairie, about three miles long and one mile broad, teeming with God's blessing, with golden ears of grain; just trees enough on it to meet the sad nakedness of larger prairies; bounded on the west by the clear Lake Winnebago with its glorious shores, on the east by the most glorious forest with its occasional openings of the farmsteads; at the northern end the neat little village of Calumet. Seldom have I seen a region that equals this in beauty. — I also had opportunity to visit three wigwams, in and about which some thirty Indians, who are altogether still very numerous in northern Wisconsin, were encamped in their dull sloth. Ah, what wretched men! How sad their life, how dreadful one day their death without Christ! God have mercy upon them! — On Saturday I visited some of the members of the congregation living farther off, mostly Rhenish Bavarians, who seemed to me to be quite simple-believing people. They requested me to preach on the next day in a dwelling-house, since their church was not yet ready for the reception of the people. With great joy they told me that the fine cloverleaf of three students, who, belonging to three different confessions, wanted a universal-union, or rather a "Friends-of-Light" congregation, and who two years ago had so embittered his stay there for our dear visitor, had been torn apart and scattered at least to three winds of the world. At the same time I took a look at the neat little church. It is a building of frame, 30 by 40, bright and pleasant, with the spacious parsonage likewise begun at its side. On the next forenoon I preached to an unexpectedly large assembly on the Sunday Gospel. During the baptism of six children which followed, some of the people withdrew, yet, as I was told, not from ill will. I then set forth the purpose of my being here and the sole conditions under which we could comply with their request for the sending of a preacher, whereupon I was answered that the congregation had come together on the basis of the unaltered Augsburg Confession; that they wished to be only a Lutheran congregation, and were fully in agreement with the principles of our Synod, which had been known to them for some time from the dear "Lutheraner." They wondered especially that there could be congregations wishing to be Lutheran which wanted to hire their pastor for a time. Only one man raised some scruples about the strictly Lutheran confession of the congregation, not on his own account, as he said, but because so many former Unionists were in the neighborhood; yet he let himself gladly be instructed from God's Word, and together with eight others, to whom afterwards my cousin also joined himself, issued a regular call to Herr Volkert for the assumption of the holy office of the ministry there. At my departure the people asked me, to avoid greater expense, since for the present they could not count with certainty upon a larger number of participants, to attend to the ordination of Herr Volkert in my congregation. In the afternoon I drove to Neu-Holstein, a quite new settlement, but already consisting of forty families, in the midst of the thickest forest. Alas! I met there only one person who truly painfully missed the blessings of the holy ministry, but who at the same time expressed her fear that there was not so much sense for God's Word prevailing there as to set it up. Yet what is not may well come to be with God's help, when our dear young brother comes into that region. If anything can be done, it is also the highest time, since the Methodists, ever ready, had already fixed a day for the beginning of their activity. — On the next evening I arrived late at the Hanoverian settlement. The man to whom I had sent word had been expecting me for a long time; but otherwise nobody: the one who ordered me had forgotten to say that I still on the same