# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1857_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church-Contemporary-History. 31

beauty of the "Song of Songs" in regard to its form. We confess that even if the work
did contain this little jewel, one ought still to shrink from digging it out of such a
mass of blasphemies against God and obscenities, or from inviting others
to do so. We very much doubt, moreover, that a man who reads the Song of Songs with such
presuppositions as the aforementioned doctor of philosophy could have been so fortunate as
to discover its true form. In any case a single sense of faith,
drawn from the Canticum Canticorum, is worth infinitely more than the
discovery of all its poetic forms.

Ecclesiastical Conditions in the Bavarian Palatinate. On this
subject a Lutheran preacher, who has left this land, despairing of a restoration
of the Lutheran church there, reports the following, among other things, to the "Freimund": The situation
and strength of the territories that were Lutheran before the Union (1818) were as follows: Lutheran
were, at the closing of the Union, especially the Leiningen territory (chiefly the region
of Grünstadt and Dürkheim on the Haardt), the Nassau-Weilburg territory (the region
around Kirchheimbolanden), the Hesse-Darmstadt territory (Pirmasens and part of its
surroundings) in part, the so-called Guttenberg Quarter (the region around Kandel toward
Alsace), the Veldenz territory (in the northwestern part of the Palatinate), the imperial free cities
of Speyer and Landau, and still some smaller territories belonging to the lesser nobility, also within the Zweibrücken
and Electoral Palatinate territories, which were otherwise predominantly Reformed, where individual
Lutheran congregations were scattered, diaspora congregations or portions added
later. The total sum of Lutheran parishes at the closing of the Union in 1818 came
nearly equal to that of the Reformed; the number of souls among the Reformed, however, was 200,000,
while that of the Lutherans was 90,000.

In consequence of a pastoral-office instruction, two clergymen were firmly resolved to give up
their office in the Palatinate and seek a new one in a Lutheran territorial church. It was especially
against their conscience to confirm once again in the Palatinate church. Therefore
one of the two laid down his pastoral office before winter and accepted a pastoral administration
in Bavaria on the right bank of the Rhine, which the royal consistory in
Ansbach had offered him at his request. The other, however, who in the winter of 1855—56 had no
confirmations to perform, felt less pressed in this regard. Something similar holds true of a
third man, who, however, does not hold or serve any pastoral office. They hope most fervently for a speedy
deliverance.

Some others may also be found who, though less involved in these struggles,
may have it in mind, should the occasion present itself, to turn likewise to that part
of Bavaria lying on the right bank of the Rhine.

Nine other clergymen, however, united after the issuance of the above official instruction
in a new petition to the highest authority (in which, accordingly, the three
first named no longer took part). They petitioned essentially only for
permission that a Lutheran doctrinal type also be permitted within the Palatinate church, or
in their own words: "that no clergyman in the united church of the Palatinate be forbidden to hold fast,
teach, and confess the original Augsburg Confession of 1530,
without thereby rejecting the opposing doctrine." Had the petition been granted, the
confusing church controversy might have found a satisfying resolution, and the petitioners would have been
given the possibility "to continue working within the united church of the
Palatinate with joy and a good conscience." But this petition too was clearly refused. There was
issued, namely on January 15, 1856, the following general decree from the royal consistory in Speyer, concerning
"the validity of the unaltered Augsburg Confession within the united Protestant church of the Palatinate,
regarding: 'In the name His Majesty the King. According to the most gracious ministerial rescript of
the 10th of this month, His Majesty the King, upon the most humble representation
of several clergy of the evangelical-Protestant church of the Palatinate on the matter noted,
has been pleased to declare: that it is not permitted for individual clergy, at their own discretion,
to set forth the confession of the year 1530, exclusively and according to its full content, as the