# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 07 26_S93
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Der Lutheraner.

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

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 1.

St. Louis, Mo., July 26, 1845.

No. 24.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at a subscription price of one dollar and twenty-five cents for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay half of this in advance and bear the postage themselves. — In St. Louis, each single number is sold for 6¼ cents.

The Lutheran Educational Institution at Altenburg in Perry Co., Mo.

It has long been expected from several quarters that we would give some account in these pages of the subject named here. Some of our distant friends and fellow readers of Der Lutheraner have therefore already directed several inquiries to us by letter. Others, who likewise confess our faith and have, at their urgent request, received teachers and preachers from among us, have doubtless been shown by these their pastors how necessary an educational institution is among them for the training of future servants of the divine Word as well; even if they perhaps see no prospect of this yet within their own circle, but share with us the holy concern that the Lutheran Church in this land be preserved among our children and descendants in time to come, they will doubtless wish to hear whether, with God's help, it has become possible for us, and whether, given the fellowship we have with one another, it is our united earnestness and zeal to train capable boys and young men from our congregations to become future teachers and preachers. It is for this reason that our dear brother in office, Pastor Brohm in New York, in No. 16 of these pages, has in particular prompted us to give a public account of what has so far been done among us in this regard.

Gladly as we now seek hereby to comply with this occasion, we declare in advance that we do so not in the sense of wishing to boast in any way of what has so far been done by us in this field. We are indeed conscious of the honest striving with which we have sought, according to our strength, to put to use the pound entrusted to us also for the propagation of wholesome sciences and knowledge among our young people, and we thank God that in this work too he has not left us without his help and his blessing; but we also acknowledge that a comprehensive scholarly educational institution requires more time, gifts, and strength than we are able to devote to it.

Our situation, removed from the noisy world, does indeed offer us and our pupils many advantages for quiet study; but whoever is more closely acquainted with the difficulties we had to contend with — and in part still have to contend with — in the whole building up of our congregations, and thus also in the establishment of an educational institution, will certainly judge us with Christian fairness.

It was indeed a chief purpose of our emigration that, just as we sought in general to guard our children from an unchristian school education, so also we wished to prepare the youth studying among us for their future calling in a more Christian manner, after the pattern of the older Lutheran churches, than is unfortunately now the case in most of the learned schools of Germany. We still keep this goal in view even now, and, God willing, will not let it be shifted from us as long as we live. But the well-known conflicts and siftings which arose soon after our arrival in America (in the year 1839) in the midst of our congregations, combined with the considerably increased difficulties and hindrances of our whole undertaking that resulted from them, naturally placed one hindrance after another in the way of the new school system we were seeking to set up as well.

Pastors and congregations had enough to do with themselves, and the latter, moreover accustomed from Germany to leaving the arrangement and direction of school matters in the hands of their spiritual and secular superiors, had for the most part also become too poor to found an educational institution for students and to maintain teachers there.

Nor, at that time, were we by any means lacking, for the near future, a fair number of candidates for the preaching office who were qualified to be called; what we lacked, however, was an orderly direction of the whole, by which to unite and hold together, for the time being, the gifts and powers of those candidates for a school purpose of the kind named. For this reason some of these candidates resolved of their own accord, for the most part out of their own means, to begin what is here called a college, and to instruct some capable boys who were available in Christianity and the ordinary school subjects, and thus also in the Latin and Greek, German and English languages. These were the candidates of theology Brohm, Fürbringer, and Bünger, who — at first in connection with our dear brother in office, Pastor Walther (the editor of these pages) — here in Perry County put the first hand to this undertaking. But when Pastor Walther and Candidate Bünger very soon followed other calls, the two candidates Brohm and Fürbringer carried on the work alone, and our congregations and pupils still owe them particular thanks for having, under externally little encouraging circumstances, devoted their time and strength so unselfishly and with much self-sacrifice to that undertaking of an educational institution, and for having persevered in it for almost two years. Candidate Brohm at last, when Candidate Fürbringer had accepted a call to the preaching office in Illinois, even carried on the entire work of the college alone, but was then overtaken by a protracted feverish illness that nearly wore him out entirely. He was therefore asked by me, the undersigned, to move into my house, and after he had accepted this offer and, to the joy of us all, had by God's help regained his health, we two jointly took over the instruction of our scholars, though in such a way that Brohm kept the larger part of the lessons.

Thus, with God's help, we tended in harmony for several years the mustard seed of our little college in the parsonage here at Altenburg, until Candidate Brohm received the call to the Lutheran pastorate in New York, whereupon I then continued the instruction for half a year for the most part alone, while some lessons were taken over by my neighboring dear brother in office, Pastor Keyl in Frohna.

Now when in the meantime the outward condition of our congregations had become somewhat more favorable, they too began — as indeed some individual members here and there had already done — to take an active and helpful interest in our institution for training future teachers and preachers. In particular, the congregation in St. Louis set a good example and called from its midst the candidate of theology, Mr. Joh. Jac. Gönner, to be a special teacher and rector of the