# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1856_S342
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

342 Church Conditions in the Coburg Region.

...to represent the conditions of Bavaria as they are not.) — A Christian ought to consider it a sin to read such a paper. Only one thing could excuse him for reading it: if his calling lays upon him the duty of combating the ideas that are stirring among the people.

Besides the village gazette, our people feed on the almanac. The most widely circulated are the Saalfeld and the Römhild almanacs, especially the latter. The Saalfeld almanac always contains, alongside a longer moralizing tale, a quantity of anecdotes that are not only tasteless but also immoral, from which one can learn, for example, not merely that stealing belongs among the liberal arts, but also how to go about it cleverly in order to deprive another of what is his. The Römhild almanac fills its empty spaces with the most tasteless anecdotes, in which, however, morality and God's holy Law are also often mocked, Christian thoughts made ridiculous, and shameful allusions not withheld.

Of the filth which, besides the village gazette and the almanac, the lending libraries offer, we do not wish to speak, since we think the capital city keeps most of that largely to itself. But one item of spiritual nourishment should still be mentioned, since for fourteen years now it has been offered annually, at a set time, to our capital and to the smaller towns of the land, indeed even to some larger villages; I mean the "Christmas Tree for Poor Children," which appears from the bibliographic institute at Hildburghausen. This little book is printed every year at the expense of Joseph Meyer, the head of the bibliographic institute, and is sent free of charge, in many copies, to a great number of places throughout Germany. There, through the sale of it, a Christmas gift-giving is prepared for poor children. This would be a rather good idea indeed, if the content of the little book offered the people only good things. But that is unfortunately not the case. Here it proceeds according to the saying: "Let us do evil, that good may come!" The little book is a collection, arranged by Dr. Friedrich Hofmann, a native of Coburg, of poems by the most various known and unknown poets and poetesses of Germany. There we find evidences of considerable splendid talent — but alas, in what service, for the most part! Decidedly Christian pieces are only very rarely found among them, Christian echoes only in a few poems. Those that march directly into the field against God and divine ordinances, consciously or unconsciously, are not exactly numerous, but among them are also the most shameful — especially such as must serve to make Christian truths ridiculous, and such as are calculated to conjure up the Revolution once more. Among the latter we must reckon, above all, those of the above-named head of the bibliographic institute himself. As an example, just one of his drops of poison from the most recent volume, and indeed not the strongest one:

"Where there is freedom, there is noise; where slavery, there is quiet;
therefore those who shun noise shut the door on the former."