# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1856_S255
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

255
Miscellaneous Church News.

Moravianism (Herrnhutianism). In a memorial which was presented last year to the Provincial Synod of the local Moravians meeting in Bethlehem, it says, as we learn from the "Brüderblatt" (July 1856), among other things, as follows: "A falling-away is evident in the Unity of the Brethren, and since the Unity is composed of individual members, we hold that each one ought to examine the falling-away in his own bosom — there, without doubt, is where the fault of brotherhood lies .. Not only in outward constitution, but in its innermost life, the Brotherhood likewise needs a renewal. And the Holy Spirit has already pointed us to this truth for years .. And yet it has not happened. Individuals among us have prayed and have been renewed, but the church, as such, has not prayed, and is therefore also not renewed. We all, like sailors in a storm, are bracing ourselves for shipwreck .. What shall spur everyone on board to unite their efforts for the preservation of the ship? The Captain's voice (that is, the Provincial Synod's!) — the commander's composure and presence of mind." To this the German translator of that document, originally written in English, appends the following note: "Whether these expectations of the author were met by the Provincial Synod, or not, may be seen from the printed synodical minutes. The whole counsel which the ships' officers assembled there gave or knew, for the rescue of the endangered little brother-ship in America, resulted in the sanctioning of open mutiny by a portion of the ship's crew and even of the mates, in the resolution to no longer heed the signals from the flagship, and in the hoisting of the flag of the narrowest particularism. The portion of the crew that remained faithful will save themselves in the boats, and when the ship, exposed to every storm, is near to wrecking, a stately frigate or two will come rushing up bearing the broad flag of Methodism or Presbyterianism, and will take aboard those still remaining, and so save them from complete destruction."

The editor of the Reformed Kirchenzeitung of Chambersburg, Pa., continues to maintain, in the number of July 15 of his paper: 1. that the Lutheran church, because it believes, according to the words of institution and according to 1 Cor. 10:16, in a sacramental union of the elements and the heavenly gifts of the Holy Supper, thereby holds to consubstantiation, "as all lexicographers and all the world say"; 2. that the Reformed church holds fast to the real presence, even while also teaching that the body of the Lord is absent from the Supper, being namely above in the empyrean heaven, which is located just beyond the stars. The benefit which we have thereby drawn from our controversy with the said editor is one more proof that the new doctrine — that there is no vacuum in the universe (a doctrine to which we ourselves have been partial) — can hardly be maintained; for in the head of this editor there does indeed seem to be a little spot where a vacuum might be found.

Ordination. In Württemberg, at the request of the evangelical synod, by royal decree of January 3 of last year, ordination of the clergy — which had not been in use here in the older parts of the country, but had fallen out of use in the newer ones — has been introduced, with the rights it confers elsewhere, so that now for the first time non-ordained candidates can be employed only for preaching.

The Church Struggle in Denmark. (A letter received.) A party had already for some time formed here which, under the pretense of churchly interest, looked askance at the dearest possessions of our church — namely at the Rock from which we, as evangelical Christians, are hewn, the Reformation — and which, little by little, since it relied merely on human standing, came at last to assail it. This party, which follows Grundtvig as its leader — a man who formerly rendered the church the most fruitful services, awakened many a dying soul, and worked widely, above all through his spiritual hymn-writing — had already by 1846 come to the point where it