# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 05 28_S153
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pass away now and nevermore."
Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Volume 6.  St. Louis, Mo., May 28, 1850.  No. 20.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents. Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by P. Gruber.)

In Memoriam

of the blessed

Gotthold Heinrich Löber,

faithfully deserving pastor of the Evang. Luth. congregation at Altenburg, Perry Co., Mo.,

departed on the 19th of August 1849.

(Conclusion.)

The LORD had adorned our Löber with fair gifts, that He might also adorn him with much blessing. His temperament consisted in a happy mixture, sanctified by grace, of the melancholic and the sanguine, joined with something of the phlegmatic. The infirmities of the one temperament were held back by the excellences of the other, and by the gracious working of the Holy Ghost the defects of all were mended, and the excellences of all sanctified and transfigured. The anxiousness and apprehensiveness of the melancholic temperament were refined into a tender, conscientious loving care for the salvation of the souls entrusted to him, the changeable many-sidedness of the sanguine into untiring, orderly and regular activity, the calm of the phlegmatic into cheerful resignation to God and sober-minded prudence. His memory faithfully kept what had once been received; his power of judgment was slow, but all the more sharply distinguished the true from the false; his strength of will gave proof of great energy when difficulties were to be overcome. He was born to be a pastor of souls, and practical theology was his proper element, although speculative theology was neither unknown nor indifferent to him. For his sermons, in which formerly reproving and admonishing had somewhat too much prevailed, afterward contained the whole ground of faith of the Gospel, pure, plain, simple and forceful. In them the Word of truth was found rightly divided and rightly distributed, the Law in all its sharpness, the Gospel with all the treasures of salvation, the new obedience in all the relations of life set up and furthered through all the levers of grace. The artificial means formerly employed, of arousing interest by piquantly worded themes, he later dropped altogether, and contented himself with treating the several doctrines of our holy faith simply according to passages of Holy Scripture, or with expounding single passages thoroughly and edifyingly. He was careful to hold back nothing, to press nothing one-sidedly, and to give comprehensible and impressive instruction in all the doctrines of faith and duties of life. Most of his sermons he wrote out word for word, and prepared himself with great conscientiousness, often sitting up through the nights, for all his sermons. Yet he did not always bind himself to the manuscript, wherefore they sometimes lasted longer than he himself liked. His voice was strong and penetrating, his delivery lively, but never overstepping the holy bounds. The spirit of devotion and fear of God animated his liturgical functions, in which he was especially assisted by his beautiful tenor voice.

He was excellently gifted also to feed the lambs of Christ rightly and well. He took the instruction of the catechumens and the church examinations very much to heart, and knew how to condescend, with skill and kindly gentleness, to the capacity of the younger and the weak. He exercised oversight of the school by occasional visits, by taking part in the instruction, and by conference with the teachers. With all his schoolteachers he lived in peace and harmony, as far as it was at all possible for him. His fine attainments in the whole Word of God, which through daily reading, meditating and teaching was very familiar to him, in the ancient languages, in grammatical and practical exegesis, wherein he was gifted to ascertain and apply with much acuteness the sense of single passages of Scripture, in dogmatics, since he had almost lived his way into all the doctrines of faith through inward and outward conflicts, in church history and world history, which he especially loved, in homiletics, pastoral theology, liturgics and casuistry, the last of which he diligently pursued from natural inclination and the pressure of circumstances, in geography, mathematics and astronomy, in the German language and its treasures, all these talents of fine knowledge he employed, as a good and faithful steward, not for his own honor and profit, but for the instruction of the young men to be trained for the ministry and for the good of the Church. That he possessed the gift of aptness to teach in rich measure was shown also in this instruction. He not only held the lessons, but knew also how to season every hour of recreation, every walk, yes, every meal, with instructive conversation with them, as well as with edifying narratives from the rich treasure of his experience and reading. He gladly allowed them also the necessary bodily recreation, even took part himself in a social game, and kept hearts and tongues thereby within the necessary bounds. To employ young people in manifold, suitable labors and tasks agreeable to themselves, for this he possessed a special inventiveness. Often he also had good German poems learned by heart and recited, had their contents rendered in prose, and gave them material for exercises in poetry. His wife and friends he sometimes delighted with a poetic effusion on their birthdays. Welling up from the deepest inner part of his heart is the poem on the departing cranes in the very first numbers of the Lutheraner. As his mouth was endowed with lovely speech, so was his hand also made ready to be the pen of a good writer. He knew how to express himself easily and fluently, cautiously and skilfully in all that he wrote down. To write letters was to him almost more recreation than labor. The number of letters written by him may well reach far into the thousands. Even in the smallest note one could perceive his sincere love, his tender conscientiousness and strict punctuality, his heart directed always toward God. Had he served the world, he might well have become a famous diplomat