# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 08 03_S97
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away, now or ever."

Published by C. F. W. Walther.

St. Louis, Mo., August 8, 1846.

No. 25.

Year 2.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at a subscription price of one dollar for subscribers living out of town, who must pay half of this in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis, each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)
Description of the Burial of Dr. Martin Luther.
(Conclusion.)

Soon after this funeral sermon (on Saturday, February 20), between twelve and one o'clock at noon the coffin bearing Luther's body, which still stood in the church, was lifted up, placed on a hearse, and carried away from Eisleben amid the singing of Christian hymns, the ringing of all the bells, and a numerous escort of the above-mentioned princes and counts with their retinues, as well as a great multitude of people. In almost every village through which this stately and venerable funeral procession passed, the bells were rung, and so, as it were, the churches too — in which, through Luther's ministry, the Word of God had sounded forth in its purity — joined in the people's lamentation over his death. Thus the body arrived before Halle at five o'clock in the evening, where it was solemnly received by all the preachers, the council, the citizenry, and the schoolboys with their teachers, and was again escorted into the city amid the singing of Christian burial hymns and the ringing of the bells. The wailing and weeping were so loud that they could be heard from the last wagon, and the press of people around the hearse was so great that the procession was very often held up, and it was not until fourteen hours later, at [illegible] o'clock in the evening, that it reached the Church of Our Dear Lady. There the assembled multitude struck up, beside Luther's body, his hymn "Out of the depths I cry to Thee, etc.," which, however, was more sobbed out in a pitiful, broken voice than actually sung. Since it had by now grown too late to hold a sermon, the body was placed in the sacristy and watched over by citizens.

On the following day, Sunday, February 21, the body was again, early at six o'clock, escorted out of the church to the town gate in the manner already described, and was received at Bitterfeld — where it arrived toward noon — by the castellan and two further electoral commissioners, and under similar ceremonies was brought that evening to Kemberg.

While all this was happening, two electoral letters went out to Wittenberg. The first, dated February 20, was a letter of consolation to Luther's widow, which stated among other things: "We do not doubt that you will now have learned that the venerable and most learned Dr. M. Luther, our dear and devout [servant], of blessed memory, your husband, ended his life, departing from this vale of tears at Eisleben last Thursday between two and three o'clock, in a Christian and good manner, with divine sayings of Holy Scripture." The other letter, dated February 21, contained an order from the Elector, presumably to the rector of the University, concerning the commissioning of two brass plates for Luther's grave and for the wall near it, bearing epitaphs.

On that same day (February 21) the rector of the University had a Latin program (public notice) posted, announcing how the solemn reception of Luther's body was to be conducted.

When the body arrived before Wittenberg on Monday, February 22 — the city in which Luther had lived, taught, and suffered for thirty-eight years, which he together with its University had made famous throughout the world, and in which he had preached for the last time only four weeks before — everything had been done to make his burial a truly princely one (as indeed he had well deserved), so that no teacher had ever been shown such high honor. The stately and numerous procession moved, while the mourning bells tolled, in the following order toward the Castle Church:

1.) The schoolchildren, who sang Christian burial hymns, together with their teachers, followed by all the preachers of Wittenberg.

2.) The electoral commissioners together with their mounted retinue.

3.) The Counts of Mansfeld with their servants, who together with the foregoing formed a company of 65 horsemen.

4.) The hearse, drawn by four horses and covered with a costly pall of black velvet, which the Elector had given as a gift to the widow.

5.) Luther's surviving widow, Catharina von Bora, who had not been able to be present at his death, together with their only daughter, twelve-year-old Margaretha, who rode with other women in a carriage.

6.) Luther's three sons: Johannes (20 years old), who had indeed accompanied his father to Eisleben, but had no doubt soon afterward returned to his mother; further, Martinus, 15 years old, and Paulus, 13 years old, who had stood at their father's deathbed.

7.) Luther's brother, Jakob Luther of Mansfeld, his two nephews, and other relatives of his.

8.) The rector of the University, Dr. August Schurf, in his academic robes, accompanied by princes and counts who were students there.

9.) The Chancellor, Dr. Gregorius Brück. (Who as such served three Electors. Luther praised him for being the only one among all jurists who gave to God what was God's and to the Emperor what was the Emperor's, and who read the Bible daily in order to grow ever more certain in doctrine; he was an active defender of the Lutheran confession at many imperial diets and was present at the presentation of the Augsburg Confession.) Him followed the following professors:

Phil. Melanchthon, rightly called the Teacher of Germany, and famous as Luther's faithful and like-minded fellow worker, especially up to the year 1535.

Dr. Caspar Cruciger, of whom Luther said: "This is a man (unless love blinds me) who will make an Elisha, if I — comparing lowly and small things with great ones — have been an Elijah." Unfortunately, he consented, still in Luther's lifetime, to Melanchthon's concessions concerning the sacramental controversy.

Dr. Hieronymus Schurf, professor of law, whom Luther called one of the best and foremost jurists, who was moreover a Christian.

These were followed by the remaining professors, etc.

10.) The entire city council.

11.) The students, in great number.

12.) The whole citizenry.

The weeping and wailing at this funeral procession were so loud, and the crowding in all the streets and in the marketplace so great, that many inhabitants of Wittenberg declared they had never seen anything like it, although within the