# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 10 27_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

year of life, sent the man whom he had chosen for this purpose, Dr. Martin Luther, who wrote concerning true repentance, forgiveness, and satisfaction for our sins, and published his well-known theses. Then I recognized at once that this was the man who had been sent to me in the wilderness; for God at once opened my eyes and ears, indeed he seized hold of me through him, led me to the spring, and threw me upon Christ. To him I attached myself at once, in the year 1517, in the confession of the doctrine. Five times the monks placed me under the ban; for a year and a half they watched me so closely that I could neither speak with any person, nor write nor receive a letter; indeed, they threatened to keep me imprisoned forever and to bury me alive, as they had done with Johann Hilten. For six years I confessed the Gospel among the monks, and wherever it was possible for me, I preached Christ, and that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life are obtained through faith alone. At last, after seven years of torment among the monks, God fully freed me from their power, in body as well; for he had already made my conscience free before that. In the year 1524 I came to Zwickau, later to Gotha, and have been driven about, as was fitting, over the field of the Lord, and so I have then, together with my holy superior, the venerable father Luther, worked in the harvest from 1517 down to this year, 1546, and his grace toward me, an unworthy and in itself useless vessel, has not been in vain."

Thus our Myconius would, in the interpretation of his dream, have given us at the same time, provisionally, a brief outline of his life; but we now return, in order to become more closely acquainted with the particulars as well.

We must indeed call his monastic estate a very sorrowful one, for even though in its first half he had peace from without, within him there was, by contrast, the whole terror and anguished unrest of a soul that trembles as it seeks its salvation on a path where it is not to be found. But if in the second half of his monastic life he had peace within himself, because he had found what he had sought for so long — the certainty of the forgiveness of his sins, of the grace of God, and of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ — then, on the other hand, his Lord's word was now fulfilled in him: "In the world you have anguish," and persecution broke in upon him in the fullest measure, which, according to Paul's word, all must suffer who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus.

Myconius seems to have spent only a rather short time in the Franciscan monastery at Annaberg; from Annaberg he went to Leipzig and Weimar, and at the latter place we already find him in the year 1512. Here he also received priestly ordination and read his first Mass, the costs of which were provided by the Elector and the Electoral Prince of Saxony, and he preached there as well. Up to this point he seems to have stood

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in every honor among his fellow monks; but scarcely had he let his assent to Luther's teaching, which was so comforting to him, become known, than every storm broke loose upon him. It is greatly to be regretted that we have no more detailed account of this time of suffering for our Myconius. It seems to have gone badly enough for him, and the monks presumably did not dare to do everything, only for the sake of the Electoral Prince, who seems to have taken notice of Myconius; otherwise he might perhaps have had to suffer the fate of the aforementioned Johann Hilten. This Hilten, a Franciscan monk in Eisenach, a kindly and venerable old man, was thrown into prison by his fellow monks because he had attacked some of the most flagrant abuses. When, on account of his age or of his long confinement in a filthy dungeon, he fell into an illness, he had the guardian of the monastery summoned, in order to inform him of it. The latter, however, treated him harshly on account of his teaching. Then the old man forgot his illness and said: "I endure this wrong for Christ's sake with good courage, although I have not even taught or written anything that could bring harm to the monastic estate; for I have only rebuked a few flagrant abuses. But another will come in the year of the Lord 1516, who will overthrow you, and you will not be able to withstand him." This took place in the year 1500.

Living together with Myconius in the Weimar Franciscan monastery was Johann Voit, who had likewise come to the knowledge and love of Christ through Luther's writings. When the monks noticed this, all fellowship with the others was forbidden him, and he was treated like an abomination. When the others ate, he had to crawl on the ground and pick up the scraps, kiss the feet of the monks, and endure the most severe scourgings; and it went the same way for his friend, our Myconius.

At last, however — it was in the year 1524 — he was rescued from the hands of his tormentors. Against the will of Duke Johann of Saxony, he was sent first to Eisenach, then to Leipzig, and from there was ordered to proceed to Annaberg. But when he noticed that the intention was to imprison him there, he fled along the way and came to the electoral mining master Matthäus Busch in Buchholz, who was a zealous friend of the Gospel; for which reason the people of Annaberg, standing as they did under Duke Georg of Saxony, the adversary of the Reformation, also journeyed in great crowds to the neighboring little town of Buchholz, in order to hear the Gospel preached there.

(To be continued.)

(Submitted by Pastor Löber.)

Sad News Concerning the Lutheran Church in Russia.

According to public reports which we read under the article "Signs of the Times" in the Dorf-Chronik (Village Chronicle, a German periodical of last year), the evangelical Lutheran Christians in the Russian-German provinces of Livonia, Estonia, and Courland presently find themselves in great ecclesiastical distress and affliction. That is to say, they are being tempted and worked upon in various ways by the Russian government to fall away from their faith and confession and go over to the Greek religion that prevails in Russia. In particular, Russian priests travel from place to place with so-called "movable churches" and employ all sorts of devices to make the people Greek Catholic. At the same time the evangelical preachers are forbidden, under heavy penalty, to warn the members of their congregations; likewise the distribution of the Bible, and all the work of evangelical missionaries among the many heathen and nominal Christians of the great Russian empire, is strictly forbidden. More than 10,000 evangelical peasants are said to have recently fallen away from the faith of their fathers as a result of the measures mentioned. At the same time one reads in the above report that a cruel law exists in Russia according to which everyone is punished with death who goes over to any church other than the Greek one. Thus, if one is a Jew or a heathen in Russia, one must remain so, or become Greek. Even the Pope in Rome complained bitterly of this to Emperor Nicholas of Russia when the latter paid him a visit last year, because the Roman Catholics too were being harshly oppressed. But the Emperor paid no heed to it.

Blessed is he who need live under neither a secular nor an ecclesiastical pope, and who, as in the United States of North America, can enjoy that outward freedom by which he may confess and practice his faith unhindered! But thrice blessed is he who, in such a land of freedom, nevertheless does not suppose that he may believe whatever he pleases, but has found the true Church, which humbly submits itself to the Word of God and is thereby the true, free mother of the freed children of God, Galatians 4:26, 31; compare John 8:31-32.

Does Old Lutheranism Lead to Rome?

(Continued.)

We have seen in the previous number that, and by whom, the Lutheran Church has for three hundred years now been reproached with still holding to a good deal that is popish — namely, in part by fanatics who were plainly people of deranged minds (2 Timothy 3:5-9), such as a Carlstadt, a Müntzer, and the whole company of the so-called heavenly prophets; in part by stiff-necked heretics, such as a Zwingli; or else by declared opponents of Lutheran doctrine and church, such as the Reformed, etc. It is thus at least certain, for the time being, that this reproach does not arise because people have now made progress and, in the now greater light, have discovered those alleged defects of the Lutheran Church which the old