# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 06 25_S174
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

174

and plunge into the ocean of the religion of JESUS? Our religion lies in its last gasps, and will go to its home, namely into the house of Yama (the underworld); and the holy men of the Dhurma Subha (that is, the Indian scholars) will not even apply the remedy of their own exertions in order to revive their dying religion."

From this communication you will be able to gather whether our evangelical missionaries proclaim the Gospel among the heathen with success or not.

And now, dear reader, I will tell you why I have said all this. I have not said it in order to entertain you; for that I have no time, and perhaps you too have none, to let yourself be entertained. So, without circumlocution: I had your heart chiefly in view. Behold, 500 million human beings, all created after the image of God, all your brothers and sisters, redeemed by the same LORD and Savior not with corruptible gold and silver, and called with you to the same glory, cry across to you from all quarters of the world: Why do the white men not send us missionaries, why do they not come? Come over and help us (Acts 16:9). Forget not: 500 million human beings! and every single human soul is in God's eyes worth more than the whole world (Mark 8:36, 37), so that 500 million worlds therefore could not make good the damage which these 500 million heathen take in their souls. I bring it to your mind once more: 500 million heathen! for although I know that you would not have the courage to shut your heart against even one poor heathen soul, if it should suddenly and visibly approach you with the expression of despairing longing and pleading despair, yet I know also that man, when misery does not come directly before his eyes, is by nature so dull that, in order to move him, it must be set forth in its whole magnitude. Therefore now for the last time: 200 million Christians — for to about that sum amounts the total number of present Christendom — see with every generation 500 million heathen sink into the grave without the comfort of the Gospel, and among these 200 million Christians, ah, how few are there who contribute even a mite for the heathen mission, yes, who so much as think of it or even know of it. Is that not sad? — Is that not a shame?

But now, dear reader, I have to deal with you, with you yourself. You too are one of the 200 million Christians who inhabit the earth together with the 500 million heathen. I ask you now: Have you a heart or have you none? And if you have a heart, have you a mite or have you none? If you have a mite, O then open your hand together with your heart. Think of the poor widow who put two mites into the treasury, and whom your Savior honored so highly that he called his disciples to him for her sake and said to them: "Verily I say unto you, this poor widow hath cast more in into the treasury than all they which have cast in." You know indeed that you have no hard master, who would reap where he has not sown, you know that your God loves not the rich, but the cheerful giver.

And now, dear reader, forget not the 500 million heathen; think of their misery, and of their longing, and above all of the express command of the LORD! But if anyone comes and would dampen your sympathy for the heathen world by the seemingly well-meant remark that we all have our hands full to do, to remedy the great spiritual and bodily need of our own countrymen, then consider that if men had thought so narrow-heartedly in former times, you would still be a heathen, and say: Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. And then just ask such a one boldly what he himself does for his own fatherland, and you will as a rule have the experience that those who have no heart for their poor heathen brethren are just as heartless with regard to their poor Christian brethren, and that, on the contrary, those who do the most for the heathen foreign land are also by far the most zealous in promoting the bodily and spiritual welfare of the Christian home land.

Now you have heard, dear reader, now prove!

Luther on the Expulsion of Upright Preachers and on the Acceptance of the Offices Held by Them.

Alas, it happens also now, within our church here, ever more often that even such congregations as wish to be Lutheran expel faithful, orthodox preachers who proclaim the truth to them, and that preachers who wish to be servants of the true orthodox church allow themselves to be called into the place of such preachers expelled for the truth's sake. How grievously such congregations and preachers sin thereby, and what curse of God they draw upon themselves thereby, cannot be expressed. For those who still let themselves be warned, we therefore communicate a letter which Luther wrote in the year 1531 to Nicolaus Hausmann, then chief pastor at Zwickau in Saxony, after the council there, in particular the then burgomaster Hermann Mühlpfort and syndic Stephan Roth, had deposed and driven away, without more ado, without the consent and knowledge of the chief pastor and without orderly public conviction of any guilt, their faithful preacher at St. Catharine's Church, Laurentius Soranus, who zealously opposed the ungodly conduct of the citizens there. Luther's voice is the more important, the better it is known that this man was farther than anyone from speaking a word for any hierarchy (priestly rule), but rather, to his death, most faithfully testified and fought for the freedom of the congregations and of every individual Christian from all compulsion of conscience and all tyranny of men. The letter in question, to which we intend to add in the next number some others belonging here, reads (in Luther's Works, Halle edition, Vol. X. p. 1890 ff.) as follows:

"Grace and peace in the LORD! We know, dear sir and friend, that we are bound, according to the law of love, that one should care for the other (as a member of the body for the other), and warn him against danger and harm. According to this law I also care for you, and am thereby moved to write you this short admonition and warning, in order that you may not through my silence some day come into danger, in which I should afterward also have to bear guilt and share.

You know that you are the rightful called pastor and curate of the church at N., accepted both by the council and by the congregation; so that you must on that day give account for the same church entrusted to you, and are bound, as long as you live, to provide it with pure doctrine, to pray for it earnestly, to care, to watch, and to venture and risk your life in all manner of distress and danger that may occur, such as pestilence and other diseases, whatever they be called, and to stand in front at the head, against the gates of hell, and to endure and undergo all that belongs to a pious, faithful pastor and curate by reason of his office. Which, verily, are all heavy, great, yea divine works; as you also, God be praised! have hitherto diligently and faithfully done.

But whereas now your council, driven by the evil spirit, expels the preacher at S. N., not accused or convicted before any judge of any misdeed; but undertakes such a thing out of its own power and wantonness, like raging men and veritable church robbers (not of bodily goods, but of the office and honor of the Holy Ghost), and in one and the same matter are at once party and judge, it will in no wise suffer that you should keep silent about it or consent to it, in order that you may not make yourself partaker of this foreign church robbery, nor become guilty of the unjust and shameful violence committed against the expelled brother. Had he been culpable, however, and had deserved that there was cause to depose him from office, it should have been done with right, and also with your knowledge and counsel, as the chief pastor.

Still worse is it that they set up another in the place of the expelled, without your leave, yea against your will, and thus, out of the same power and wrong of their own, now practiced also upon you, intrude the same. Here, dear sir and friend, be warned for Christ's sake, that you look well to it (for it is verily