# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 11 24_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[Continuing from the previous page.]

...thereby also denies Christ himself, who has dearly purchased our freedom for us. It does not help here that such a preacher has the good intention of wishing, by his conduct, to spare the weak; for the sake of the weak the truth cannot yield, nor may the purity of doctrine be endangered — rather, everything must yield to the truth of God. Hence Luther writes, among other things: "Listen, my brother: you know that for the sake of Christian liberty, as for any article of the faith, we are to give up body and life . . . It is needful for you to confess and maintain Christian liberty, and not to allow the devil to make of it a commandment, a prohibition, a sin, or a matter of conscience, where God will have none. But where you let such sin be made, there is no longer any Christ to take it away. For with such a conscience one denies the true Christ, who takes away all sin. Therefore you see how, in these small matters, no small danger stands, when one insists on binding the conscience by them." Further: "Where men wish to make commandment, prohibition, sin, good work, conscience, and danger, when God wills to have freedom and commands and forbids nothing, you must hold fast to such freedom and always do the opposite, until you retain your freedom." (Treatise Against the Heavenly Prophets, Luther's Works, vol. XX, p. 278.) Here a Lutheran preacher has what is incumbent upon him to do, if he wishes to remain faithful to his church.

(To be continued.)

(Correspondence.)

The Norwegians in Wisconsin.

Mr. Editor!

The latest issue of the "Lutherisches Panier" ("Lutheran Standard"), published in Columbus, Ohio, carries a noteworthy article on the Norwegians in Wisconsin, to whose content I would like to draw your readers' attention. —

As far as this article makes clear, in the past two or three years some twenty thousand Norwegians have immigrated into Wisconsin, settling in the southern counties of that state, the majority of whom have doubtless found employment in the mines. According to the report in the Standard, these people have so far had no pastor of their own tongue and confession, and it was only in 1845 that they received a preacher in the person of Gustaf Unonius, ordained by the (Anglican) Bishop Dr. Kemper. This first attempt at proselytizing seems to have been followed by a second, set on foot by the Presbyterians, who are presently having a young Norwegian — converted, it is said (?), by reading a tract of the American Tract Society — study in their seminary at Beloit, Wisconsin, in order to employ him among his countrymen as a missionary. It would not in the least surprise the writer of these lines if the ever-ready Methodists and Baptists too, whose missions (?) at Stockholm and Copenhagen have come to a standstill, should send missionaries to Wisconsin, so as to add, to the Swedish-Anglican and Swedish-Presbyterian congregations, a Swedish-Methodist congregation and a congregation of Swedish Baptists as well.

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No one, it seems, has yet given thought to forming a Swedish-Lutheran congregation — and yet the sacred duty of sending a missionary to our abandoned Norwegian brothers in the faith ought to lie nearest of all to us Lutherans. In this report of the Standard there lies a not undeserved reproach to our Lutheran Zion, whose sorrowful state of division has hitherto made every joint effort on this so important home mission field impossible; but at the same time also a vigorous summons to action, before it is too late. Shall we wait until our Scandinavian fellow believers have given up their confessional writings, their old church rite, and their memories of their native land? No other confession can carry on the work of gathering and uniting these scattered sheep of Israel with such success. In just recognition of this fact, the Synod of East Pennsylvania, which is affiliated with the so-called General Synod, at its recent convention at Milton this past October, has indeed resolved to take active charge of the Norwegians in Wisconsin, and we may shortly expect to find, in the "Lutheran Observer," the report of the missionary sent out by this synod, together with the number of Norwegians already "converted" by him. — Should not the German Lutheran Synod of Missouri, both on account of its close connection with the European mother church and on account of its geographical position, find occasion to take vigorous charge of these abandoned kinsmen in the confession in Wisconsin? R.

—

The Despairing End of One Who Denied the Truth.

It is well known amid what dreadful torments of soul the Italian jurist Francesco Spiera departed this life, after he had abjured the evangelical religion — of whose truth he had been convinced in his own conscience — and had professed the Roman Catholic religion. A companion piece to this is the example of Dr. Moritz Krause. This man was a councillor of the Elector Albrecht of Mainz, Archbishop of Magdeburg, and in the year 1527 came to a living conviction of the evangelical truth, and now confessed it also by word and deed. Although the archbishop had a mandate posted that none of his subjects, as they valued their life, should approve Luther's doctrine, Dr. Krause now nevertheless valued Christ's command more highly, and, in spite of the prohibition, received the Holy Supper in both kinds. But at last, when ever more confessors of both high and low estate were, for the truth's sake, some put to death, some driven away, Krause was seized by such fear that his own turn too might now soon come, that he denied again the truth he had recognized and, against his conscience, received the Holy Supper, after the antichristian perversion, in but one kind alone. Yet when, notwithstanding all persecutions, the evangelical truth won ever more confessors, and Krause had to see how many, for its sake, cheerfully staked honor and goods, indeed body and life, then at last the denier's gravely wounded conscience awoke. But it was now in vain that he was exhorted to repentance, in vain that many precious divine promises of the forgiveness of all sins through Christ were held before him, in vain that he was urged to sigh for grace to his Savior, the Blotter-out of sin; his answer was: "Alas for my misery, what have I done? I have denied Christ my Lord; therefore he is now no longer my mediator and advocate, but now stands before God the Father in heaven and accuses me before him and says: My Father, be not gracious to this Moritz Krause, and forgive him nevermore the sin of blasphemy and denial, by which he denied me before the bishop." — In this state of utter despair he then remained, and when one day he had been left alone in his study, he was afterward found lying on the floor, having taken his own life by his own hand. —

This is how Satan does it: first he blinds men so that they despise Christ as he hangs for them upon the cross, and once they have done this, he whispers to them that he is now only their accuser and judge. First he says: Pecca! ("Sin!"), then he calls: Persevera! ("Keep on!"), and at last he thunders into the conscience: Despera! ("Despair!") Ah, dear reader, never listen to his voice. But if you have perhaps already followed him — indeed, if you have not only sinned, but have perhaps even long continued in it — that is certainly a terrible thing; yet even then you should not think that there is now no more help for you; oh, do not add to your sins the most dreadful one of all, which is despair. The voice that says to you, "Despair!" is never God's voice, but Satan's. Jesus receives all, even the greatest sinners. You too, if you come, will not be cast out.

Though sin among us be great,
With God is grace far greater;
His hand to help knows no limit,
However great the harm may be;
He alone is the faithful Shepherd
Who will redeem Israel
Out of all its sins.

Union.

Beyond doubt the most broad-minded union was founded by the emperor Alexander Severus, who in his household chapel venerated, alongside Orpheus (a pagan), also Abraham (the forefather of the Jews) and Christ. This pagan ruler, who once united the world's three principal religions, might fairly be called the grandfather of all unionists.

Pastor D. Scherer conveys the hearty thanks of the congregation served by Pastor Wyneken for the 25 thalers with which the latter has supported the "Zion Congregation" in Carmel.

Paid:
Year 1. Pastor Crämer.
Year 2. The same.
Year 3. The same (5 copies), and Messrs. Pastor Becker, Dr. Haynel, Pastor Husmann, Pastor Jensen, H. W. Succop, S. Weymar.

Printed by Weber and Olshausen.