# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 11 01_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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…just like the devil's toward Christ, when he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said: See, all this I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. Do you then think that I esteem the riches of this passing world greater than God's everlasting Word and kingdom? I would rather my Catharina and I go forth destitute, staff in hand, than deny God and his Word." The councillors, who gathered from this that nothing was to be accomplished here, thereupon ceased all further pressing of the faithful, upright duke, and set out at once on their return journey to Dresden.

Meanwhile George's illness had grown considerably worse, and, overtaken by his mortal agony without thinking of the full execution of his will, he had sent only for his confessor, Father Eisenberg. The latter now did his best to point the dying duke to his own merit and to the saints, urgently commending to him above all the invocation of his patron saint, St. James. But when it became clear that this comfort would not calm the frightened man, Dr. Rothe, his personal physician, who was of evangelical mind, took heart, threw his arms around the man lying in his last throes, and cried out to him: "Gracious lord! You have a proverb: Straight ahead makes the best runners! Therefore pay no heed to what men tell you of departed saints and other intercessors, but direct your heart straight to the crucified Jesus, who died for our sins and is our sole intercessor and Savior: then you may be certain of your salvation." With faltering tongue the duke, wrestling with death, answered: "Ah, then help me, thou faithful Savior Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, and make me blessed through thy bitter suffering and death. Amen." He wished to speak once more, but his hour had come; he passed away — and so the will remained unsigned.

So when, that same day, late in the evening, his brother Henry — who had been prepared, for God's Word's sake, to decline the deceased's dukedom — arrived in Dresden, he was at once received there by the people with rejoicing and greeted as the new sovereign. The priests and monks were greatly dismayed and grieved at the unexpected turn that affairs had thus taken in this part of Saxony. The foremost men at court, George's former flatterers, who during his lifetime had sworn solemnly that they would rather lose everything and be driven into misery than abandon the old religion, now likewise professed great joy over their new lord, and were so busy at his arrival that his own servants could no longer get near the carriage, nor help him in alighting.

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Thus God had already, according to Matthew 25:21, set Duke Henry — who had proved faithful in a small matter — soon over much, and had, through a remarkable turn of circumstances, allotted to him his brother's lands, more than ten times greater than his own. The outcome was glorious. Henry did indeed deal kindly and gently with professors, priests, and monks, and supported and tolerated them for a time in their old errors, until they themselves recognized the truth or emigrated; yet he immediately, on Luther's advice, had a church visitation held throughout the land, and abolished all idolatrous practices, especially the Mass and communion in one kind, and borrowed for the time being, from many places, zealous and gifted preachers of the Augsburg Confession, who had to preach the pure gospel to the people everywhere in the land. So it came about that, whereas at Easter of the year 1539 everything in the so-called Meissen land had still been papist, by Pentecost of that same year evangelical preaching and worship were already being held in all the churches of the land. In Leipzig especially, where the late George had raged terribly against the Lutherans (among other things, he had had the bookseller Hergot beheaded there in the public market in 1521 for selling Luther's writings), almost the entire citizenry now received the gospel with rejoicing; indeed, when Luther preached in the town church on the second day of Pentecost, the hearers fell down upon their knees and thanked God with many tears for the blessing of pure evangelical preaching they had obtained. Thus was fulfilled what Luther had proclaimed many years before in these words: "I see that Duke George does not cease to persecute the Word of God and its preachers, as well as the poor Lutherans; indeed, he grows more violent and furious every day; but I shall surely yet live to see how his entire name and line are blotted out by God, and I shall myself yet preach at Leipzig."

Luther, an Unlearned Monk.

When the monks of Louvain, at the beginning of the Reformation, complained bitterly to Margaret, Queen of Belgium, that Luther's writings threatened the whole of Christendom with…

Luther's Two Grave Sins.

When, as a result of Luther's public appearance, a great uproar arose everywhere, and the harshest judgments of condemnation were issued against him, especially from Rome, the Elector Frederick the Wise summoned the famous scholar Erasmus of Cologne and asked him what the hatred that had been directed at Luther at the Roman court was actually grounded in. To this Erasmus gave the following explanation: this came about because Luther had committed two sins which could not be forgiven him — through his disputations he had struck the monks in their bellies and the pope in his crown; what he taught was indeed true and certain, he only wished that Luther would use somewhat gentler expressions in his writing style against his adversaries.

Reformation Through the People.

Under the reign of Elector Frederick II (died 1556), the longing for reformation among the people in the Palatinate grew so great that the spiritual and secular authorities could no longer resist it. When on one occasion Mass was again to be read in the Church of the Holy Spirit in Heidelberg, the assembled people, as soon as the priest had begun at the altar, started singing loudly the Lutheran hymn of justification:

Salvation now has come to us
through grace and pure goodness;
good works can never help at all,
they offer no protection.
Faith looks upon Jesus Christ,
who has done enough for us all;
he has become our mediator.
etc., etc.

This became the signal for the introduction of evangelical worship throughout the entire land. Would to God that our dear brothers in the faith in Germany would also finally take up this same courage against the rationalist shepherds — or rather, wolves — that have been forced upon them!

Commitment to the Confessions of Faith.

A particularly sad testimony to the deep decline of the church in this our new fatherland is the manner in which most congregations arise and continue to exist. Because very many of the preachers themselves have no true, God-given faith, but are weathervanes who turn in matters of faith wherever the wind blows, they likewise do not seek to gather such congregations as, according to God's Word, ought to be held together by their members' shared faith and shared confession. In most congregations here, the rule instead is: whoever pays such-and-such an amount annually is a member of the congregation, without anyone…