# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 01 08_S74
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

74

is, from which it was formerly served, it made the offer in the year 1842 to raise the whole pastor's salary alone, if only it might obtain a pastor of its own. It obtained one. With tremendous exertions it raised what was needful until 1847. But through the hard times which, as is well known, have weighed upon Upper Silesia in the last years, it has come to this, that now only thirty members at all are able to contribute, who are to bear the whole burden alone, but cannot, unless the LORD help. — The congregation at Woiselwitz, near Strehlen, consisting of 567 souls, sighs under the enormous burden of debt of 7500 thalers, on which it is to pay interest and besides is also to meet the pastor's salary and other church needs. It is in utter perplexity, and since various rental incomes, with which it formerly helped itself, have now fallen away, it does not know how it is to continue to exist in the future without brotherly support. — In similar distress is the congregation at Züllichau, already drained in the years of persecution, whose 500 souls have to bear, in debts alone, a burden of 3000 thalers.

But, beloved brethren, we fear that by the dry enumeration of such distresses, which repeat themselves monotonously in the most of our congregations, we weary you. We have not wished to name all the congregations, nor, even as regards the congregations named, all the distress. This only we wish still to point out, that the general church treasury, so often mentioned, to which the pastors are referred as regards their salary, is formed from the contributions of all the congregations, and has hitherto been in some measure able to meet its obligations only because some well-to-do congregations, out of love for their poorer sister congregations, raised more than the salaries of their own pastors amounted to. Yet this salary fund is now not merely exhausted, but already in debt to the amount of 500 thalers.

The little, however, that we have related will suffice to awaken your brotherly sympathy. That our Church in Prussia, which had melted down to a handful of people, has in its struggle with the whole power of the state — a great power of Europe — carried off the victory, and has not succumbed even to all its countless money embarrassments, but rather, under these hindrances and difficulties, extraordinary for our faith-weary age, has grown from year to year, so that out of the 14 parish districts with 10,000 souls which we numbered in 1841, and out of the 17 parish districts with 16,000 souls of 1844, there have now become 35 parish districts with 27,200 souls — that is plainly God's work, and our history is one of the signs of the times, by which the hidden God desires to become manifest to this wicked generation, to which only the hypocrites and adulterers are unwilling to give heed.

But if, with our wonderful deliverance and our history hitherto, we are God's work and building in Christ JESUS, should you not wish to become God's fellow-workers? May the LORD turn your hearts to active compassion toward us, your kinsmen in the household and in the faith. If you give us up, as far as lies with you, to destruction, then days may soon come also upon you in which you will sigh and say: "We are verily guilty concerning our brother Joseph, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." But again, if you show mercy to us, then the word will be fulfilled in you: "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again."

Now, dear brethren, we do not fear that you will put our countenance to shame and pass by unmoved this picture of our distress and our want. You will pray for us and with us; you will comfort and counsel us; you will open your bountiful hand and help us. But whatever you would extend to us of comfort, counsel and bountiful gifts for the sake of the love of Christ, hand it to our Supreme Church Consistory in Breslau; the same will thankfully accept all, administer it conscientiously, and also punctually observe the particular stipulations which the dear givers may make with regard to individual distresses or congregations. In advance we give thanks for everything that your love will do. Of all that you do to us, who with you have lain under the heart of one Mother and have drunk from one Mother's breast, may the LORD, who is called and is a Recompenser, be mindful for JESUS' sake. May He, and He will, be mindful of it to you in all the troubles which may yet break in upon you and your children, — be mindful in the last distress, when it will be most anxious to you at the heart, — be mindful finally in the resurrection of the just at the last day, that you may then hear from the mouth of JESUS the sweet praise of grace: "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

We greet you all, who read this our letter of distress, in conclusion with the most hearty brotherly greeting, and in spirit clasp our hands in yours in an eternal covenant upon JESUS' passion, and commend you to Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To Him, the only wise, our God and Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.

Breslau, October 4, 1848.

The General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia.

Gifts of love for these poor fellow-believers will be received with joy, for forwarding to the place of their destination, by

the Sonntagsblattschreiber.

(Sent in by Missionary Pastor Baierlein.)

Some Things About the Aboriginal Inhabitants of This Country, and What Is Being Done for Them by the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

III.

Autumn.

When the pious husbandman, according to the ordinance of God, has tilled the ground in the sweat of his face, and in such labor of his calling the ripening and testing heat of summer has followed upon the bud- and hope-filled spring, and at last upon both the proving autumn, he is wont to look back and trace the blessing of God, which has anew crowned his fidelity in his calling, according to the promise of God. And even if he finds his neighbor's barn fuller than his own, if he sees that it has pleased God to bless the labor of others more visibly and richly than his own, there will nevertheless always remain to him cause enough to strike up with his whole heart a "Now thank we all our God," etc. — The mission field also is a field of tillage, and its cultivators have received their share of the toil and sweat of the husbandman just as much, in that, like those, they make it hard for themselves through untimely care, fear and hope. What that man is wont to do, let it be permitted also to this one, namely to look back, and to trace the blessing of God.

The field which was assigned to us for cultivation is small, and by far has not the extent which we would have wished. But the LORD of the field and of the harvest, who assigns to every laborer his day's work, surely knows much better than we ourselves what is proportionate to our strength, our diligence and our fidelity; wherefore we also do not complain that our field is small. But that Satan has visited even this small field so abundantly with his tares, that wrings sighs and complaints from us at times.

When we now turn our glance first to our school at Frankenmuth and Bethany, we miss indeed many a pupil, boy and girl, whom we loved and for whom we hoped, and whom the father of lies, who will not allow that the little children come to the LORD JESUS and inherit the kingdom of heaven, carried off in manifold ways with the co-operation — of the Methodists. Whether the word of life, heard here so many times, will become to them a savor of death unto death, or whether it may yet some day, and perhaps in the bitter hour of death — whose earnestness opens the eyes of many a one, lets him recognize the abyss upon which he built so securely, and makes vanish all that delusion and falsehood gave out to be rock-firm — break forth from under the rubbish that hid it, and serve the fleeing life as its only hold, the praying soul as its only comfort and light, and as a sure staff through the dark valley of death, to the gates of Paradise: that is known to God, not to us; but hope and pray we may.