# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S88
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

88   Proceedings of the 19th General [Synod], or

"He delivered this sermon at the altar instead of from the pulpit (as
indeed he was in the habit of occasionally interfering on his own
authority with the order of worship), and to the question of why he did
so, he replied: 'The pulpit is too high; some arrogant person must have
built it, that's why I don't like to go up there.'

    "When he was asked to please preach again as he had in the first
two years, he replied: 'I cannot; I must go deeper. The Holy Spirit tells
me I am to preach this way now; woe to him who opposes it — he sets
himself against the Holy Spirit.' He declared that he was now in the
3rd stage of his conversion; that he had now awakened, and that the
congregation must now awaken too. 'My first stage,' he said, 'is my
youth, the time of my studies, and my first pastorate. There I preached
the Gospel with all my strength — as sweetly and lovingly as I could; I
preached fine sermons, but I could not believe what I preached. I
pleaded and prayed that God would let me believe it. At last I came to
believe it, and moved into the 2nd stage. And now I entered the 3rd
stage — the Holy Spirit has awakened me. You must have noticed it
from the fact that I read the psalms differently and speak the prayers
differently. Now I experience the sweetness and power of the psalms as
I have never experienced them before.' These are Döscher's own words.

    "He also has the habit of passing quick judgment on those who
contradict him. He immediately denies the status of God's children to
those from whom he meets opposition. Some of his statements within
the congregation are as follows: Prof. Hoppe, he said, was a respectable
man of the world whom he feared would yet end as a suicide. Pastor
Rösener was a mendacious man. Pastor Mödinger was a man who broke
his word. Of teacher Schönhardt he feared that he too was unconverted.
Teacher Köhnke was still unconverted. Nor was it right with teacher
Reisig either, for since there were still unconverted children in the
school, this was a sign that he did not rightly divide Law and Gospel.
To a Mr. O., a member of the Zion congregation, he bore witness that he
was a soul consecrated to God; but when that same man confronted
Pastor Döscher with his wrongful conduct toward the St. Johannis
congregation, he declared him still unconverted — indeed, later even a
murderer. He declared the district president, summoned to come, to be
unconverted before the man had even arrived in New Orleans.

    "From the above one can surely see clearly enough that Pastor
Döscher truly suffered from an overstraining of the nerves. But since
some members of the congregation were still not clear about this, Dr.
Sanders, Pastor Döscher's family physician, who was present at the
congregational meeting, was asked to give testimony about Pastor
Döscher's condition. Dr. Sanders did so and said: Pastor Döscher's
condition was