# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 30_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

38

As for the Hungarian people, the Christian may well pity them, but he may not justify them; otherwise he would have to justify revolution, which is flatly forbidden in God's Word. The word of the Lord, "Resist not evil," is the rule for individual persons as well as for whole nations, and he who does not bear the sword by virtue of office may not take it up, not even under the pretext of seeking a withheld right; but here it is a matter of humbling oneself under God's hand and seeking His grace with repentance. We know well that with these principles we have the whole public opinion against us; but so much the more shall we not cease to warn our readers not to conform themselves to the world also in this respect.

The Danish war has been brought to a provisional end by an armistice between Prussia and Denmark, to the great vexation of the Schleswig-Holsteiners.

The King of Prussia seems to have succeeded in his endeavors to place himself at the head of a German confederation at least so far that he now has all the northern states, with the exception of Oldenburg, on his side. Over against him stands Austria with Bavaria and Würtemberg, and negotiations are being carried on in order to bring about a peaceful agreement between this northern and southern league. In a short time a congress of princes is to be held, which is to bring the German question to a final conclusion.

If rumors are to be believed, a dangerous storm is now gathering over Switzerland. The great lords are said to have in view nothing less than a dismemberment and partition of Switzerland among themselves, in order thus to destroy the hearth of republican ideas and the hiding-place of the German republicans in the sight of Europe.

A Testament.

(See: Sonntagsblatt 1840, No. 41.)

"There was a citizen plagued with a self-willed and proud wife, who would not be content with what her husband gave her according to his means, but wished to go high and to be equal to the richest. The poor man did not wish to anger his wife, left his trade, became a merchant, and heaped together great money and goods by usury and fraud. Now he lived with his wife in daily joy, pleasure, and pastime. At last God knocked at the door, and the man fell mortally sick. His wife and his friends admonished him to make a testament. But he said he had made his testament already. They did not let up, however. Then he consented and began before notaries and witnesses: 'In the first place I bequeath by testament my body and my soul to the devil and all hellish spirits forever, to burn with them in the abyss of hell. They own it.' The wife said: 'Ah, husband, are you foolish? How do you talk so? Think of Almighty God!' He said: 'I am not foolish. As I have said, so it must be. Nothing else will come of it. To whom should I more fitly commend myself than to him whom I have served? In my life I have had nothing to do with God.' The wife said: 'What will you then do with me?' Then he answered: 'You shall burn with me in hellish fire forever.' The wife crossed herself and said: 'God keep me from that.' He answered: 'What, God? God has nothing to do with you. You have been a cause that I gave myself to the devil for money's sake. I could never satisfy you with finery and clothing and do enough for your pride, I had to leave my honest trade and become a merchant, to cheat people and overreach them in words and works, weight, measure, and ell. Therefore you shall have part with me in the eternal fire. Nothing else will come of it.' — His father confessor, whom he had daily at table, also asked him what he would have for his testament. Then he answered: 'You shall also eat with me the bread of eternal tribulation in the abyss of hell.' He said: 'God forbid.' Then he answered: 'No blessing or guarding helps against it! You have been in my bread and have daily seen and known my wicked, unchristian trade, and have never reproved me for it, neither secretly nor openly; but you kept silent and feared that I would deprive you of my good table. You loved gluttony more than God's commandment, and pleasure more than the poor soul which you might have rescued out of the devil's jaws by good admonition. Therefore you shall also nevermore in eternity be parted from my table, but shall eat with me forever in the abyss of hell. Nothing else will come of it. Such work wants such wages.'"

This story is not invented. Credible men relate it: Johannes Anglicus, Johannes Spangenberg in the Ehespiegel, and Thomas Rorer of Pruck. Let yourselves be warned, you daughters of Eve! You sons of Adam, let yourselves be warned! You pastors of souls, ah, should you also need the warning, you who are to be the salt of the earth! "Lord, deliver Thy Christendom from its vices!" so prayed our fathers! Kneel down and pray the same!

Related by Löhe.

"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Rom. 4:5.

St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, who died in 1153, took the utmost pains to surpass all monks in piety, and when he supposed he had succeeded in it, he put his trust in this his piety. He writes, therefore, that once it seemed to him as if he were cited before God's judgment seat and there accused as a gross transgressor of the divine law. Then, he says, he answered: "I have done as much as I could." But Satan replied to him: "You should have done all. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them." Deut. 27:26. Since you have not done this, you have deserved God's wrath." Here Bernard, returning into himself, cried out: "Woe is me, I have lived damnably!" Whereupon Satan answered: "Then God has rods and punishments with which He will requite you." Bernard: "Ah, gracious God, crush, burn, cut here, only spare in eternity." Again Satan cried: "The punishment is to be borne both here and there." Here Bernard now paused for a long time and said at last, appealing to Christ: "My Christ possesses the kingdom of heaven by a twofold right: first as true God by the right of His eternal birth, and secondly as true man by the right of His redemption. The first right I leave to Him, but of the other I know that He will share it with me and all believers." And so Bernard wound his way out of his temptation.

O dear reader, who wouldst be saved, mark this example of the holy Bernard; learn, like him, to despair of all thy works, even the best, and to avail thyself of the beggar's right, and appropriate to thyself by faith the righteousness which Christ has obtained not for Himself, but for us men! This and no other is the way in which thou canst be saved.

(Sent in by Pastor Sievers.)

Communications from a Letter of My Friend of the 10th of June of this Year.

The conditions of Germany have improved in nothing since our last correspondence; nor can it well be otherwise than that the seed of injustice, which at the beginning of the revolution was sown even by the moderate men celebrated by the nation, such as H. v. Gagern, Dahlmann, Uhland, and so forth, will yet bring a rich harvest of destruction.

But it must become irrefutably clear, especially in the present time, by the example of the men named and of many others, that with a civic uprightness one cannot get even through this world, to say nothing of coming into heaven. —

The political conditions I pass over in silence, especially since they will be known to you through the newspapers; but it might not be superfluous to mention some ecclesiastical innovations. Hitherto the only fruit of the revolution for our Hanoverian state church that has already been introduced into practical life has been the institution of the church council. This, consisting of the parish pastor or pastors and several laymen freely chosen by the congregation (at least four, in