# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1857_S96
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

96 Contemporary Church History.

How people report from Germany, about Germany, to America. A glaring example of this is found in the February issue of the "Deutscher Kirchenfreund" of Philadelphia. In it, among other things, a correspondent from Württemberg reports — as the "Kirchenfreund" assures us, "a noted writer" — the following: "As concerns the Lutheran church in particular, it has, in Germany (!), among the common people all but vanished even in name, and among the educated and among the theologians been done away with down to the root." This "noted writer" seems to have come down from the moon only recently, and therefore to have learned nothing of all that has happened on earth, particularly in Germany, during his absence; or else the man mistakes the village or town in Swabia in which he resides for the whole of Germany. From this example our esteemed readers can gather why we seldom bring ourselves to reprint reports on German conditions that are found in the periodicals here. It borders on the unbelievable, what a "Lutheran Observer," for instance, allows to be reported about our old fatherland by correspondents of particularly Presbyterian and Methodist papers. It almost seems as though the Americans residing in Germany draw their information about the state of the German church from the waiters at their hotel.

The alleged Christianity of the United States. In the "Evangelist" we read: "The 'Free Presbyterian' reports that James Buchanan, the president-elect of the United States, is not yet baptized, and that what is known concerning his religion is an assurance given by him some years ago in a private conversation, that he believes in the divinity of the Bible and has an unshakeable trust in divine providence."

A model of excerpting. The "Lutherische Kirchenbote," in its issue of Feb. 6, gives two excerpts from the work of Kurtz of Dorpat, "Bible and Astronomy." And what does it offer its poor readers out of this work, which admittedly contains much that is fine? — The assertion that the first man, before the creation of the woman, was a hermaphrodite! What? Could the Kirchenbote find nothing better than this old Jewish fable, newly warmed over by the enthusiasts Jacob Böhme, Valentin Weigel, Gichtel, the author of the Berleburg Bible, and others? Luther writes of this: "The second chapter (of the first Book of Moses) overturns and drives back all such lies. For if that were true, how could it stand written here that God took one of Adam's ribs and built a woman out of it? Such lies are found in the Talmud, and one has had to touch on them so that we may see from them the devil's malice, who puts such absurd things into people's heads." (See Luther's exposition of the first Book of Moses, on 1:27.)

Baptists. These numbered, in the United States at the close of last year, 928,571 members in all; among these were 1725 German and Dutch, 200 Swedish, 1100 Welsh members. The membership of the Freewill Baptists came to about 49,800; that of the Seventh-Day Baptists, 7000.

The Episcopalians in the United States had, in the past year, 39 bishops in 31 dioceses and 1827 presbyters and deacons; their membership stood at 116,731.

II. Abroad.

Canonization. It has hitherto been assumed that Duns Scotus, the famous scholastic and defender of the so-called immaculate conception of Mary, from the 13th and 14th century, was buried alive, since upon an opening of his grave it was found that he had bitten through the thumb of one hand, presumably in despair. The present Pope, now, since he would gladly, in honor of that dogma of his, place its defender among the saints, has given orders that this circumstance, which has hitherto hindered the canonization, be more closely investigated — that is, that whatever is necessary be done so that the apparently unchristian end of the scholastic can be decently explained away.