# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1855_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

58 Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.

not calculated for our present circumstances here. Moreover, our preachers here can, for the most part, devote only very small sums to completing their book collections; the still-available store of purchasable old theological classic writings, thank God, is now diminishing considerably from year to year, so that obtaining them is becoming ever more costly. All the more important, we think, is it therefore for our pastors that they be given opportunity not only to become acquainted with the wealth of Lutheran-theological literature, but also, and indeed especially on account of the limited means at their disposal, to learn which works on the various branches of theology are, among all of them, the best and most indispensable.

Before we now proceed to the work itself, we consider it necessary to note the following in advance.

We shall present, review, and recommend almost exclusively older works, since it is naturally not our intention here to give a complete history of the work done in all theological disciplines in our Church or for it, nor even to name all those writings from which something, or for our part much, can be learned; rather, we intend, in part to acquaint readers with the orthodox writings, in part with those writings most needful above all others, and to remind them of these. But into the category of writings of this kind falls, alas, only a very small portion of the present so immense theological — including so-called Lutheran — literature. Since, however, in the great kingdom of divinity there are territories to whose cultivation even the wood-hewing and water-carrying services of erring and unbelieving Gibeonites contribute no contemptible share, we will accordingly here and there also enter such writings into our list, with the recommendation of which we shall at the same time have to combine the necessary warning against the falsehood contained in them.

We shall indicate and, respectively, commend only such books as we know exactly from our own use.

First we divide the works to be taken up into our library into three classes. First, those which by right ought to be in the library of every American Lutheran pastor, which we therefore regard as almost indispensable for them, partly for the right conduct of their office in all its parts, partly for necessary continued study, and into the possession of which even the least well-off should therefore seek to come. To the second class we reckon those which pastors of somewhat greater means should acquire next, before they enrich their library with other, though otherwise useful, books. With the books that we place in the third class, we intend to let readers cast a glance into the full granaries of Lutheran-theological literature, for a free selection determined by circumstance. Also with regard to the writings of our third class