# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S191
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Miscellaneous Church News. 191

...Lutheran member. For this man — who is at the same time court preacher at the court church that, with all deliberation and for good, binding reason, has remained Lutheran in the very midst of the United residence city — is co-editor of the Allgemeine Kirchen-Zeitung, which pursues United tendencies, and there speaks up most decidedly for the Union, in opposition to confessionalism. The Lutheran confession, and still more the Lutheran Church, is thus treated in Hesse, although it is the most numerous, the original, and the rightful one, as though it had no right at all. The churchly foundation on which the Hessian church system ought to rest, and on which alone it could be built up unto salvation, is despised and trodden underfoot.

Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung. Berlin, of Nov. 7, 1855.

Hannover. As we learn from the "Freimund," the ministerium of the city of Hannover has come to an agreement to restore public worship to its original order. To this end a brief declaration has appeared in print for the congregations, which we all the more gladly communicate here, since it describes a liturgy exactly as it is prescribed in our own Saxon Agenda, soon to be republished. The ministerial declaration reads as follows: "The ministerium, with the consent of the right honorable Magistrate, has recognized it as desirable to bring the order of public worship in the four city churches into agreement with one another, and at the same time to complete it somewhat on the basis of the church order — partly in order to give the thoughts that underlie the worship service their due and intelligible expression, partly in order to offer the assembled congregation a more active share in the celebration, and through both to secure and heighten the blessing of devotion. For better understanding the following remarks may serve. After the congregation has entered the house of God with the entrance hymn, it brings, through the mouth of the choir, its first petition, the prayer for grace and mercy before God ("Lord God, have mercy," etc., called in the language of the Church the Kyrie). And because God has promised his grace to all the world in the gift of his Son, the congregation appropriates that grace with praise, in the song of the heavenly hosts at Christmas, which the minister intones and the whole congregation sings ("Glory to God in the highest" — "All glory be to God on high," called in the language of the Church the Gloria). After access to the throne of grace has thus been gained, the minister and the congregation greet one another in the Lord as a testimony of the fellowship of faith and of God ("The Lord be with you" — "And with thy spirit"); the minister then brings the particular concern of the day before God in prayer, and the congregation acknowledges it with its Amen (called in the language of the Church the Collect). Thereafter the Word of God is read from the Epistle or Gospel of the day, and the choir, in the name of the congregation, gives thanks for the Word through the Hallelujah (except in Lent). The congregational hymn that now follows has the purpose of expressing the thoughts that the particular season of the church year and the Word of God just read are fitted to awaken in the hearts. After this hymn follows the so-called reading and a hymn, by which, on the ground of the Word heard, the Christian faith is confessed and testified to (called in the language of the Church the Credo, the Creed). Thereafter follows the sermon, and after it the sermon hymn. When now the Holy Supper is held — which by right ought to happen on every Sunday and feast day, since it is the highest and most grace-filled act of worship and first brings the most blessed fellowship with God to completion — the communicants are invited, through the mouth of the choir, to the assembly at the Table of the Lord with a pure heart ("Create in me, O God, a clean heart," etc.), and the holy act then begins with an introductory word (called in the language of the Church the Preface). That is, the minister and the congregation join themselves anew together, through a greeting that goes before, into a more intimate fellowship of faith; he calls on them to lift up their hearts and to thank God for all his benefits, the highest of which is the Sacrament, and the congregation answers in corresponding fashion; thereafter he brings the thanks and praise of the congregation before God, entering in spirit into the eternal songs of praise of the holy angels, and the congregation concludes the praise of him who visits his congregation with the threefold "Holy" of the Seraphim (called in the language of the Church the Sanctus).