# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 04 16_S134
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134

prohibition of kings and states, partly on account of the decline of the Roman Empire, since our whole continent was visited by the wars, plunderings and devastations of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Lombards, and foreign peoples, and since the growth of the Turkish Empire claimed all the strength and thoughts of Europe. It is therefore probable that the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel had already in former times penetrated to those places, since Paul testifies, Col. 1, 23., Rom. 10, 18., that the Gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven, and since in the first times of the Christian Church no people was known to which the sound of the evangelical preaching did not reach. Justin writes in Dial. cum Pryph., pag. 270: "that there was no people on earth to which the name of Christ had not at that time become known". Tertullian mentions adv. Jud., c. 3.: "In Christ believed various tribes of the Getulians, many countries of the Moors, the regions of the Britons not yet accessible to the Romans, of the Sarmatians, the Dacians, the Germans, the Scythians, of many distant peoples, provinces, and many islands unknown to us, which one could not all count up." Jerome in cap. 24. Matth.: "I do not believe that a people has remained which does not know Christ's name." Ambrose in c. 10. Rom.: "The preaching of the Christian name has been heard everywhere and has penetrated to every place." For where "the presence of the preacher is lacking, thither the sound and the report nevertheless penetrate". The same is testified by Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, wherefore the Spaniards have also found in that new continent some dim traces of Christianity introduced in former times. The historian Peter Martyr reports: "it had been seen that some American priests in the kingdom of Mexico, above Darien, baptized boys and girls one year old in the temples with water, which was set upon a cross in a little pitcher". With baptism they combine circumcision, which is a proof that the Christian religion was once brought from the Ethiopians to America, since these also combine this Jewish ceremony with the sacrament of baptism. Johannes Lerius mentions of the Brazilians that they assent to the immortality of souls. He reports also that he once spoke to them of the true worship of God, of the creation of the world, of the fall and corruption of the human race, and of other chief articles of the Christian religion, and after they had listened to this for more than two hours with great attention and wonder, one of the old men at last answered: "he knew from the report of the forefathers that already in most ancient times and very many years ago a man, clothed after our fashion and wearing a beard, had come into their land, who sought with a similar discourse to move them to obedience toward God: but as their forefathers gave him no credence, another soon followed, who delivered to them a sword as a sign of the curse; since that time war and discord had continually prevailed among them". Of the Peruvians Hieronymus Lenzo writes, lib. 3. c. 20., that they too believed in an immortality of the soul, and adds from Spanish writers: "that the Peruvians believe that in ancient times an immense flood of the earth took place, in which all men perished, with the exception of a few who had hidden in the caves of the highest mountains and thus escaped the general fate. Further they believe that the world will some day pass away through immense drought and burning of the air, whereby even the sun and the moon would be swallowed up: they believe in a resurrection of the dead". Joh. Gerhard. Loc. theol. tom. 5. pag. 971 sqq.

Professor Wm. M. Reynolds, the Columbus Seminary, and the "Evangelical Review".

From the "Lutheran Standard" we learn that the theological seminary at Columbus, Ohio, is facing a complete reorganization. The grounds hitherto belonging to it have been sold and better situated ones purchased. The preparatory school is to be separated from the seminary and converted into a general literary institution or school of learning, in which the pupils can obtain the preparatory training for any faculty study; and finally the theological institution is to be united with those for the study of the general sciences, of jurisprudence, and of medicine into one complete university, yet in such a way that each of these faculties stands entirely independent in its department. The institutions thus united are to bear the name "Capital University". At a meeting of the directors of the seminary and the trustees of the university, held on the 7th of last month, the Rev. Wm. M. Reynolds, professor in Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, was unanimously elected president of the university. Professor Reynolds has accepted this call, and as soon as the present half-year course at the Gettysburg institution is closed, he will enter upon the office entrusted to him. We do not doubt that all friends of learning in general, and of our Church in particular, will receive this news with great joy. Professor Reynolds has shown himself not only a man of solid learning, but at the same time, especially in recent times, a teacher who is faithfully minded toward our Church and her Confession, so that we heartily greet the election of this dear man to the filling of so high and important a post as a victory of the good cause of our Church. As proof that we have good ground for this, we intend to give in the next number an extract from a reply which Professor Reynolds has published against the attacks of his then colleague, Professor Dr. Schmucker, upon the Confessions of our Church in the latest numbers of the "Lutheran Observer".

Concerning the "Evangelical Review" we have to report to our readers that Prof. Reynolds will indeed continue to work on it, but from the 1st of May of this year will lay the business of the editorship of this quarterly in the hands of Dr. Krauth, president of Pennsylvania College, so that all written communications concerning the "Review" are to be addressed from that day to the last-named (likewise to Gettysburg). Professor Reynolds assures us that through this change of editor the periodical will suffer no alteration in plan and character, and reports at the same time that the second edition of the first number has left the press.

(Submitted.)

Popes.

Benno relates that five popes gave themselves entirely to Satan in order to attain the papal chair, namely Sylvester the Second, Benedict the Ninth, John the Twentieth, John the Twenty-first, Gregory the Seventh. Nauclerus and Platina testify that all the popes from Sylvester the Second to Gregory the Seventh, the latter included, were sorcerers. When Alexander the Sixth had by mistake drunk the poison which at his command was to have been set before some persons of rank, and, mortally ill, sent a servant to Modena into his chamber to fetch a gilded book of magic, in order to ask the devil about the end of his life: the servant found Satan sitting upon the papal chair and clothed in the papal vestments, and heard him say: "I am the Pope." Truly an excellent governor of the papal chair! Joh. Gerhard. loc. th. tom. V. pag. 998.

Treachery Punished.

Pope Eugenius and Cardinal Julianus induced King Wladislaus of Hungary to break the ten-year truce concluded with the Turkish king Amurad II., by attacking him with war, and so breaking his given promise. When the two sides had come to close quarters and the fighting was carried on with terrible bitterness, the Turkish line of battle began to give way and to turn to flight. When Amurad, almost beside himself with despair, beheld this, he cried out with a loud voice at the image of the crucified JEsus in the army of the Christians: "Crucified One, if Thou be God, avenge the faithlessness of Thy people, who so shamefully break the oath sworn in Thy name." Soon afterward fortune turned, the army of the Christians was cut down, the king himself in the battle of the