# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1856_S236
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

236 Sermon Preparation from Dr. Luther.

education, as well as to those who lay claim to higher education. Our present-day language — I do not mean the theological jargon, but the language which we have learned through our upbringing at home, at school, and under the influence of our whole environment — has, on the one hand, been for more than a hundred years in the service of Rationalism and has in many respects been shaped by it; on the other hand, it is the fruit and instrument of a culture that belonged only to a small part of our people and was either wholly foreign to its lower classes or clung to them here and there, like the English-American flap on the back of the Sandwich Islander. We are therefore compelled, on the one hand, to the presupposition that the language of our time must first be reworked again into a serviceable instrument of the pure Gospel — a work that certainly cannot be done better than by putting it to school under Luther's genuinely evangelical speech; on the other hand, we have doubtless all had the bitter experience of how utterly unintelligibly we, generally speaking, speak to our congregation members. Already in Germany I had to convince myself of this, while at the same time noticing that as soon as the preacher cited some saying of Scriver, Arndt, or H. Müller, everyone listened, understood, and remembered what was preached, and that, finally, Luther's words always made the most powerful impression. This observation, which forced itself upon me, almost against my will, both in my own preaching and in listening to others, drove me to memorize a good many passages from Luther and other fathers, and also to read Luther's sermons in preparing my own, and so quite often to employ the language of the old writers. That, however, is not enough; our whole language must be trained upon that language which is Luther's own and is in any case the purest and noblest model, as happens through reading with the pen in hand. One must not, however, imagine under this undertaking an anxious striving, a ridiculous aping. Elsewhere I have once said that one cannot imitate Luther the way one might imitate a Harms or a Dräseke — namely in such a way that one thereby becomes an ape or a caricature. These latter preachers stand out through all manner of peculiarities, are original in various respects; but to imitate peculiarities and individual original traits is to make oneself into a caricature. Luther, on the other hand, has no peculiarities about him at all, and is original through and through — a personality so richly gifted, and yet so entirely master of his gifts, that his being and character confront us not in a few individual striking traits, but as a whole, like a handsome building or an attractive painting. To train and exercise one's own language upon his cannot become an anxious mimicking; anxiety is altogether out of the question in the study of the cheerful, courageous, warm-hearted Luther. Only try this study once, and you yourselves will laugh at the notion that it could drive you to the anxious question: am I now really speaking just as Luther did?