# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Dezember 1856_S381
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Miscellaneous Church News. 381

many of them it is said: "Not only do they accomplish little, but they are often even a great hindrance." It is remarkable that almost all the sects now complain in this way who themselves formerly broke away promptly from larger bodies and immediately founded a new sect, once things were not lively enough for them in their mother communions.

Religious Freedom in France. Louis Napoleon has expressly instructed all prefects to permit all Protestants in their districts the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion, declaring at the same time that he never wishes to hear again of persecutions of Protestants, or even of disturbances of their worship.

The Methodists in Germany. The "Apologete" reports the following: "The first conference of the preachers of the Episcopal Methodist Church in Germany assembled on Wednesday, September 10, 1856, in Bremen. The statistics were handed in and read as follows:

Districts and Stations: Full Members: Members on Probation: Resident Preachers: Sunday-School Pupils:
Bremen, Station . . . . . . 58 6 — 475
  "     District . . . . . . . 57 33 1 155
Brake . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1 1 60
Bremerhaven . . . . . . . . 21 12 — 118
Hamburg . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 1 60
Saxony, District . . . . . . 99 55 2 30
Frankfurt . . . . . . . . . . 172 — 2 210
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . 428 109 7 1108

The Ambrosian Hymn of Praise. The Consistory of Westphalia has recommended the practicing of this hymn in the schools and its more frequent use in the churches, particularly on the high festivals.

Binding to the Prescribed Liturgy. The Consistory of the Province of Brandenburg, at the instance of the Upper Church Council, has issued a circular in which every alteration, even the slightest, in the order of worship and the administration of the sacrament is forbidden.

Zealand. An assembly of about 100 Zealand preachers (Denmark) has petitioned for the abolition of compulsory baptism and of the religious schoolbook of Bishop Balle.

General Conference. Mr. Dr. Kurtz, according to the issue of the "Luth. Observer" of November 7, is quite delighted that the General Conference, as he thinks, has produced such meager results. The good man thereby only shows that he does not regard the truth and does not know its sole driving and abiding power. The "Luth. Standard" replies to the "Observer," among other things, as follows: "Yet, in order to increase his visible pain, to the end that he may learn to recognize his own skewed, principle-less, and hostile position, we would further assure him that the Conference was, in its results, all and more than its best friends had expected; hardened as he is, had he been present, he could scarcely have helped but derive benefit from it himself. — We are not among those who despise doing small things. Those who were witnesses of our confession at Augsburg were fewer in number and had to face fiercer resistance than we. The apostolic church, with all its members, was once scarcely larger than our Conference; that church has spread until its membership is now counted in the hundreds of thousands and millions; we too, holding the same faith as the apostles, are certain that, with God, we have only made a beginning that will ever increase in blessing for the church, now and through all succeeding generations. Would to God that the editor of the Observer, and all who, like him, labor to bring reproach upon the Lutheran Church, would begin to perceive the folly of their undertaking, to come to a right knowledge of the one faith, and to let themselves be won over to devote their