# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1855_S77
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Sample and Prospectus, etc. 77

the section, which is distinguished in particular by its thorough, capable grammatical treatment, and the most complete extracts possible from the still more extensive sections of Gerhard’s treatment, which testify to the most thorough scholarship, astonishing breadth of reading, and exhaustive analysis of the text; we then came together, shared with one another the treasures we had unearthed, discussed them, and took them home with us to invest them as rich capital by using them diligently and conscientiously in our preparations for sermons on Sundays and feast days. And behold, whenever we met again, we could only praise and glorify God with thanksgiving for the great blessing we had received from this work: how, guided by the faithful hand of our godly and enlightened fathers, we were led ever more deeply into the correct understanding of the text, and how a wealth of divine, living thoughts had been opened to us, enabling us, with the assistance of God the Holy Spirit, to break the bread of life more abundantly for the little sheep of Christ entrusted to us. Indeed, it was a true joy of the heart to see how this or that younger brother grew and advanced so rapidly and perceptibly through this blessed means, and how in this way the sermons gained in substance and in lively, more varied application.

After a year and a half of experience had demonstrated to us in practice the suitability and great benefit of the method we had adopted, and after we had also received some encouragement from outside, the decision matured among us to make the fruit of our efforts the common property of the church by publishing those translations and treatments of ours in print. We are convinced that in doing so we shall not only render a welcome service to our dear fellow ministers within our Synod, but we also hope that outside our synodical association there will still be many earnest, God-fearing, and diligent preachers who are ashamed to feed their congregations with the foolish salt of human speech, who still regard conscientious preparation for their sermons as a sacred duty and a heartfelt concern, and who will therefore gladly welcome such thorough and capable assistance in this supremely important work. Indeed, we believe that even more advanced members of the audience, who desire, in accordance with the declared will of God, to mature to full manhood in knowledge, will find here precisely the wholesome and nourishing food for which they long. To recommend this work to all these people, we could of course truthfully say much more, and could do so all the more freely because we are merely serving the food of other cooks in German dishes. Instead of any further recommendations, however, we shall content ourselves with presenting below, in the pericope for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, a concise example that will certainly speak for itself and recommend itself best.

But in order that this work, already proven by experience to be so richly blessed, may have a