# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 06 11_S161
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall never pass away."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 6.  St. Louis, Mo., June 11, 1850.  No. 21.

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 for it 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 addressed to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent here under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Address delivered on the occasion of the solemn laying of the cornerstone of the German Evang. Luth. College and Seminary Building at St. Louis, Mo.,

delivered on the 8th of November, 1849.*)

*) Communicated at the request of many. — The Editor.

Highly honored Assembly!

For as long as the Church has had its existence in the world, the reproach has been made against it from a certain quarter that it shuns the light, that it is an enemy of all enlightenment, indeed an enemy of art and science. The ground of this reproach is without doubt twofold; apart from the disposition of those who make this reproach, it lies partly in the principles which the Church has at all times openly declared itself, and partly in certain excrescences which from time to time have attached themselves to the tree of the Church.

It is true that the Church has always and ever protested whenever by enlightenment was understood the setting aside of revealed religion and its mysteries of faith, or naturalism; it is true, further, that the Church has confessed ever and anon that art and science are not the goal of man's destiny itself, in short, not an end, but solely a means to an end; it is true, finally, that the Church has confessed again and again that all science, so far as it is man's own product, is only for this world, not for that; that it knows no way to God and can give no infallible disclosure concerning the world beyond, can therefore never satisfy the eternal needs of the human spirit, and can only stand by the side of the eternal wisdom of God as a handmaid; yea, that all human wisdom becomes foolishness when it comes forward against the divine wisdom of the Gospel as its adversary or master. But should the Church on that account be an enemy of human wisdom, because it refers it back into the sphere, into the territory, which alone belongs to it? This testifies to enmity against art and science as little as he makes himself suspected of contempt for the study of natural bodies who will not allow the laws of natural philosophy to hold in the domain of the doctrine of the soul.

It is nevertheless not to be denied, further, that at times elements hostile to scientific education have shown themselves in the midst of the Church. In ancient and modern times there have been Christians, and often whole parties of them, who, in a falsely spiritual, fanatical direction and by misunderstanding certain sayings of Scripture, have rejected all worldly sciences as carnal things, have declared the study of them harmful and ruinous, and have regarded universities as the sources of all corruption in the Church. At one time it was maintained that worldly learning is not consistent with the humility and the renunciation of the world to which a Christian is called, who has obtained all his knowledge without human instruction, solely in the secret school of the Spirit. Such overwrought ideas have manifested themselves not only before the Reformation among the members of many monastic orders; even at the dawn of a new day for the Church three hundred years ago such morbid tendencies promptly came to light along with it. I recall only the so-called heavenly prophets and Anabaptist communities, with a Carlstadt and a Thomas Münzer at their head. Their kindred spirits in our own days are well known.

In another manner, yet just as hostile to a general scientific education, men have shown themselves in the midst of the Church in those times when certain classes indeed cultivated the field of science, but regarded it as a privilege of their caste and used it to make themselves indispensable, to occupy the most influential offices of society, and to keep the people in tutelage, to educate them for their own purposes and to lead them by the leading-strings as they pleased. These were a certain class of priests and members of orders of the Roman Church. They were not the only ones, however; they are also those who even now use art and science solely as a means for their purposes; and it is precisely our present new fatherland where those servants of a great priestly state spread over the whole world have, by means of the cultivation of art and the sciences, in part played into their own hands the education even of Protestant youth, and so have secured for themselves a mighty, decisive influence upon the disposition and shaping of the Protestant world.

But should the reproach be justly made against the Church on account of these occurrences within it, that it either stands in the way of the advancement of art and science, or uses both only to keep the members of society under guardianship? — I answer with fullest confidence: No! For what could be more unjust than to make the Church answer for all that takes place in its midst, contrary to its own principles, and in part from its own enemies whom it bears in its bosom? No! whether we look at the history of the Church and its influence on the education of the people, or at its own most important interests, or finally at the task which the Church has, each of these considerations must confirm us in the conviction that the Church has always been a faithful, sincere friend and nurse of art and science, and, according to its nature and its calling, always had to be.

To tarry a while with me in this consideration I venture to invite the highly honored assembly here present, since in this hour, as is known, the cornerstone is to be laid for an edifice which, undertaken by members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, is to serve not only as a nursery for future servants of the Church, but also as a place of cultivation especially for German art and science in this distant western land of the new world. May my plain address then contribute something toward calling forth the right mood for this solemn act and the joyful hope in the hearts of my honored