# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 16_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

27

see here, people, with us is the true love, on our banners you will find it depicted. — Fie, the devil — None of your love for me! the lie is too gross and godless! The Pharisees were holy people compared with you. They gave, to be sure, also out of selfishness, but yet to the poor; you give only to yourselves, for even if some good-natured simpletons, such as you for example, let themselves be befooled by the outcry of love, yet among a hundred hardly two would be found who have joined in order to practise love, rather than to enjoy your benefits. Yes, language fails me to express my full abhorrence of such an abominable lie, whereby all Christian conceptions are overthrown, the divine image of Christian love is changed into a hideous grimace, and the people are actually led into the abominable error of taking selfishness for Christian love. It takes the dullness of the nineteenth century to be able to bring forth and swallow such horrors and abominations unpunished, and double shame upon the preachers, who not only do not cry out against such abomination, but take part in the abomination and approve it. It is they over whom the LORD pronounces the woe, Is. 5, 20.

C. I must confess, you have put a flea in my ear, and have considerably cooled my zeal for the societies.

P. Would to God I had cast nothing but goads and nails into your conscience, Eccl. 12, 11. For when your eyes are once somewhat opened through your burdened conscience, the truth must surely force itself upon you, that you are striving against God and His holy plan of redemption, and by your word and example ever more darken the world, so that it no longer sees at all for what the LORD has really redeemed it, and that is nothing else than that it shall be transfigured again into the image of God, and God is love. But now you set up selfishness as true love, and thousands and again thousands, yes, converted Christians, are already so far blinded that they no longer even see the horrible error and lie of which even the heathen would have been ashamed; for with all their darkness it never occurred to the heathen to pass off as love what you pass off for it. It is well that God takes care that the trees do not grow up into heaven; He will bring you also down to the ground again, and open the eyes of the world to your love and your outcry of love; so that you will be ashamed of yourselves, and give up your doings, at least the Christians among you who bear their name also in deed.

C. If only I had not already put so much money into the societies, I would withdraw on the spot.

P. Aha! so the fox comes out of the hole at last? Do you see now that all your prattle of love has been mere prattle? For if you joined from love, and to practise love toward the poor, and not to receive support yourself, then nothing is lost of the money, though it might have been better invested; but because you had only your own in view in it, you withdraw unwillingly, since you have now given your money away for nothing, and get nothing back for it. But, hard as it may be for you, and for poorer Christians also, only consider whether for the sake of a few dollars you will go on acting against God's Word, giving offences to the church and the world, robbing the LORD and His church of the honor which is due to Him alone, and lending your strength to others who, as you must confess, work against Christ and His church, yes, through the lie, which is now plain even to yourself, ever more darken the world, and fill it with the most shameful and most harmful error? Do think for yourself how you will appear before Him who sacrificed Himself and all His glory for your sake, and by the surrender of His holy blood and life has given you sufficient assurance that He will also provide well for you in bodily things, especially if you sacrifice the bodily for Him. Ah, consider the great earnestness which the attaining of salvation requires! For if the LORD says that whosoever loveth his life shall lose it, what will become of him who will not risk the few dollars? Whoso doth not forsake all, yea, hate his own life for My sake, saith the LORD, is not worthy of Me! O, let His love for you penetrate into your heart, and you will be ashamed to take the small and merely apparent loss into account!

C. There will be no lack of scorn and derision either, if I withdraw!

P. Certainly not! They will call you an obscurantist, a priest's lackey, etc., but only such as themselves have no conscience left; honorable people, even if they hold your views to be exaggerated, will say you are right, if you follow your conscience. But what is it anyhow? Fools we must become for Christ's sake, if we would be His disciples, and some day His joint-heirs, 1 Cor. 3, 18. And what is all the glory or hatred and scorn of the world compared with honor and rejection before the LORD? If Christ confesses you before His heavenly Father and His holy angels, then the blasphemies of the world must surely be silent, and if He denies you, then the honor which the world gave you will certainly not comfort you in hell, but will be an increase of your pain, because you despised the honor of your LORD and King for the sake of the honor of the world, which before God is nothing but shame.

C. But if I now were to trouble myself no more at all about the societies and only went on paying the contributions?

P. Would you not remain in the same damnation? Would you not make yourself partaker of other men's sins? Would the offences cease? Would you thereby, as you are bound to do, make an open, honest confession against the sinfulness of the societies, and for the LORD and His church? Would you not have to despise yourself as a miserable coward, and deservedly earn the contempt of the world, because you would not even have courage enough to step forward fresh and free, as even an honest and capable heathen does? Yes, would you not blaspheme Christ anew among His adversaries, and disgrace our holy faith, when they see that a Christian may act so ambiguously in his faith? Rouse yourself, Carl, and be a man and a Christian! Half-way dealing is always a disgrace for a man, how much more for a Christian; there can also be no repentance, no faith, no good conscience, no joyful heart consistent with it; and your own conscience will tell you that such conduct is nothing but a betrayal of Christ and a giving up of the salvation of souls. Call upon the LORD for light, for courage and strength, and you also will soon be able to boast with David: "By my God have I leaped over a wall," 2 Sam. 22, 30., although these walls are not so high.

C. I see well that it is easier to find one's way into the world than to come out of it again. But a leap over the walls must nevertheless be ventured.

P. Well, I will try to give you the right swing.

C. How so?

(Conclusion to follow.)

(Submitted.)

To the Lutheran Church in the United States of North America.

That the undersigned Commission ventures to address the present communication to the whole Lutheran church in the United States of North America will, it is hoped, not give offence, if one considers the importance of the subject, which is set forth in what follows, and bears in mind that it is precisely the Lutheran church to which alone we can turn in the matter concerned. The matter, namely, which we are constrained hereby to lay before you, concerns the establishment of a permanent institution here in the West, in which preachers of the saving Gospel are to be educated for our fellow believers, so greatly forsaken here, and for our posterity. Some Lutheran congregations formed here thought indeed soon after their coming together also of this, that it was their duty to make a beginning toward a theological preachers' seminary. Such a one also arose ten years ago. But it was only a small beginning, and has remained such to this very day. Only four young men, who from early youth have learned the ancient languages and are well instructed in theological science, have come forth from the Collegium, and been placed as laborers in the great harvest. In