# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 16_S29
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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mayors and aldermen of all the cities of the German land, that they should establish and maintain Christian schools," he says: "As dear as the Gospel is to us, so firmly let us hold to the languages. For God has not in vain caused His Scripture to be written only in the two languages, the Old Testament in the Hebrew, the New in the Greek. Now those which God did not despise, but chose for His Word above all others, we also ought to honor above all others. And let us be assured of this, that we shall not be able to retain the Gospel well without the languages. The languages are the sheath in which the sword of the Spirit is sheathed; they are the casket in which one carries the jewel; they are the vessel in which one holds this drink."

How necessary learned preachers are in the Church also, who are able to expound the Scripture, and that pious, simple preachers do not suffice alone, he shows in the same writing; he says: "Augustine too must confess that for a Christian teacher, who is to expound the Scripture, the Latin, and also the Greek and Hebrew language are needful. Otherwise it is impossible that he should not stumble everywhere; yea, there is still need and toil, even when one knows the languages well. Therefore it is quite another thing with a plain (mere) preacher of the faith, and with an expounder of the Scripture, or, as St. Paul calls him, a prophet. A plain preacher (it is true) has so many clear passages and texts through the interpreting of others, that he can understand Christ, teach, and live holily and preach to others. But to expound the Scripture and to deal with it on his own, and to contend against the erring perverters of the Scripture, he is too weak; that cannot be done without the languages. Now one must have in Christendom such prophets, who ply and expound the Scripture, and are also fit for the conflict; and it is not enough to have a holy life and to teach aright. Therefore the languages are absolutely and in all things needful in Christendom, just as the prophets and expounders are, although it is not needful, nor must it be, that every Christian or preacher should be such a prophet, as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 12, v. 8 and 9, Eph. 4, v. 11." And of himself Luther says: "This I know well, however, how much (greatly) the Spirit does everything alone! Had not the languages helped me, and made me sure and certain of the Scripture, I should have kept far enough away from all the bushes. I might well have been pious, and have preached aright in quiet; but the Pope and the sophists, with the whole antichristian regime, I should have let be what they are. The devil does not heed my spirit so much as my tongue and pen in the Scripture. For my spirit takes nothing from him but me alone; but the Scripture and the languages make the world too narrow for him, and do him harm in his kingdom."

You see, dear fellow believers, from what has been quoted, how necessary schools for the learned are, and therefore that the expenses which such schools require must by no means be shunned.

Up, then! consider, it concerns the honor of God, which you are hereby called upon to promote. For only for this reason shall the Gospel be preached to every creature unto the end of the days, that God's name be hallowed and His will done, that men created after God's image, but fallen, be brought back again to the knowledge of their God, and an eternal congregation be gathered, which shall praise the triune God here in time and there from everlasting to everlasting before His throne.

Consider, it concerns the highest need of your brethren, which you are to help relieve through a small gift, and the highest good, which you are to help procure for them through a trifling earthly good. You know how many of your fellow Christians, who speak one language with you, have one fatherland, confess one faith, are spiritually starving and suffering want. You know how they are led astray into unbelief and false belief. You surely can never suffer your own, in order to save a temporal good, to starve in their souls and languish spiritually!

We turn first to you, to whom it lies nearest, you Lutherans in the West.

Either you have an upright preacher of the Gospel; then you know indeed from experience what a benefit God has shown you thereby. Should you not also grant your brethren this grace? Or you lack a faithful servant of your Church; you are either deprived of every pasture through the preaching of the Gospel and through the administration of the holy Sacraments among you, or you are beset to let yourselves be fed by those who offer you a soul-food against which you rightly harbor distrust, whether the poison of soul-destroying false doctrine be not mixed in with it. Do you not feel the greatness of the need in which you lie? Should not the longing have awakened in you long ago that this your spiritual forsakenness might come to an end? — You love your children and wish that they might be brought up in the wholesome doctrine; but must you not look into the future with deep anxiety, and ask: "What will become of our children? Whither will they turn? Into the hands of what party will they fall?" You think of preachers coming over from Germany; but what a wretched makeshift it is for us, if we are to rely forever on the sending of preachers from such distant places, and wait for them!

Would it not be dreadful if this fair Western land, though under God's blessing ever more gloriously flourishing in temporal things, should yet, through our fault, become in spiritual things a wilderness for us Lutherans and our children and posterity? Up then, brethren! open hearts and hands to help, while for you there is yet time, to help and to do good. —

We turn also to the dear Lutherans in the East. Often have we read in your newspapers urgent exhortations to do something for your poor fellow believers in the wide West. You have, then, perceived the need. It is a crying need. But you have hitherto done only little for the West, for no opportunity was offered you to accomplish with small means something to relieve the great need. Now such an opportunity presents itself to you. Let our urgent request, then, which we hereby address to you, be no vain request. Would that especially those might take up this most important matter who by virtue of their office and influence can lay it upon the heart of whole congregations, the preachers and congregational officers! —

In conclusion we can give to all kind givers the solemn assurance: 1. that the institution to be enlarged has a constitution by virtue of which there shall irrevocably be educated in it only such preachers as serve the orthodox, evangelical Lutheran Church, whose doctrine is clearly and plainly set forth from God's Word in the Book of Concord of 1580; 2. that the institution according to its constitution is a German one, and must remain unchangeably so; that therefore, besides the German language, only the Latin is and shall unchangeably remain the medium of instruction, while the English, like every other foreign language, shall be and remain only a subject of study; that the most conscientious application of the contributions received to the appointed purpose will be supervised by the whole Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States, and that exact account thereof will be rendered publicly from time to time by its officers.

Thus we, who are commissioned to begin the building for the institution described above with still very small means, have followed the impulse of our hearts, to turn in intercession to the love of our fellow believers here.*)

May the LORD, however, who turns the hearts of men like watercourses, turn also the hearts of all readers of this to united support of the work, to the furtherance of which we have hereby addressed them in brotherly fashion. May He crown every mite offered in faith for it with overflowing blessing for the extension of His blessed kingdom, and Himself be to all givers their exceeding great reward. Amen.**)

The commission elected by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States for the building of the German Evangelical Lutheran Seminary at St. Louis, Mo.

F. Böhlau, J. F. Bünger,
Ch. König, C. Römer,
E. Roschke, A. B. Tschirpe,
C. F. W. Walther.

*) Kind gifts may be sent under the address: Mr. E. Roschke, care of Rev. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

**) Should editors of Christian periodicals feel moved to give the above a wider circulation also through their respective papers, we would acknowledge it most thankfully. D. E.