# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1855_S280
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

280 Miscellaneous Ecclesiastical News.

be declared permanent?" — Even in Germany, then, there is still a considerable remnant of people, leftovers from the time of the dominion of rationalism, who wish for periodicals of the color of our own Kirchenfreund here, or indeed of the Evangelical Review — a kind of tribunes in the church market-place, from which now a "high"-churchman, now an unchurchly man harangues the reading public, and which, by way of exception, a good-natured Lutheran too may occasionally mount. Thank God, however, that there are still men even in Germany who still believe that man can find the one and pure truth, and that such a find has really been made by our evangelical-Lutheran church and laid down in her confession. —

The Kingdom of Saxony presently has 451 Lutheran theological candidates awaiting appointment to the spiritual office. In the year 1854, 35 Saxon candidates were ordained and appointed in Saxony, and 2 were called abroad (to Altenburg and Silesia). Before their expected entry into office, 7 had died. — In the year 1854 Saxony had 1,118 ordained Lutheran pastors. The oldest present member of the Saxon Lutheran ministerium was born in 1756, the youngest in 1827. — In the year 1834 Saxony still had 1,656,122 communicants (excluding those being confirmed), whereas in the year 1853 it counted only 1,483,755, so that in the year 1834, for every 100 persons over 14 years of age there were 154 communicants, but in 1853 only 108 — which works out to an annual deficit of 172,367, even though the population in the period in question had risen by nearly half a million souls.

Miscellaneous Ecclesiastical News.

Irvingism. In the Augsburg region the sect of the Irvingites is finding ever wider spread; congregations have already been formed and divine service has taken place. (Wechselblatt.)

Baden. The Badenese Landeszeitung brings the report that Pastor Haag in Ispringen, "known for his extreme Old Lutheran orientation," has been dismissed from the service of the "evangelical" (united) territorial church and, under threat of police measures, has been expelled from his previous place of residence. So, alongside Eichhorn and Ludwig the Third. As to the particulars, however, one must await further information.

(Petri's Zeitblatt.)

Secret Societies. "Three times within 20 years," says the Saxon Church and School Gazette, "has the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung of Dr. Hengstenberg, on particular occasion, called out to the servants of Jesus Christ with ever greater emphasis: '"It is not right that a servant of Christ should associate himself with the Freemasons,"' — but it seems this voice has not gone to ear or to heart."