# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1857_S159
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church-Current-Events. 159

spirit of the German Catholics and free congregations from the years
1848 and 1849, from which by their own testimony they themselves
descend.

In Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, so writes the "Freimund," in whose
church things on the whole still look very gloomy, an unexpected step
toward improvement has taken place. At the head of the church
government in this little land there has stood for many years
Superintendent Schneemann in Sondershausen, a rationalist of the old
school, who had no notion of the church and its life and who, as late
as the eighteen-forties, published a tract against the Lutheran doctrine
of the atonement. In his place the prince (whom God bless for it) has
now, at the close of the year, called Pastor Zahn from Wasserthalleben
(near Sondershausen), an earnest and vigorous witness to the glory of
the Lutheran church. He is a member of the Thuringian Lutheran
Conference in Erfurt, and is thereby known to all faithful Lutheran
Christians of Thuringia and dear and valued for his gifts and his zeal.

Hamburg, in October. The united Provost Krause, so writes the
Dorfkirchenzeitung, from Breslau is now here and already in the midst
of his activity. Against his appointment there was, from certain
preachers counted among the "believers," a protest raised twice; but
since this bore no fruit, they resigned themselves and were content. In
the colloquium orthodoxiae (a discussion on right doctrine), by which
his unbelief might have been brought to light and his appointment
thereby prevented, the two pastors especially qualified for that task
took no part; and so Mr. Krause, who did not shrink from signing the
symbolical books, became an evangelical-Lutheran pastor. Whether the
fruitlessness of the protest raised against Krause's appointment, as
against Grapengießer's the year before, is to blame, or something else,
I do not know — enough that for about a year and a half several more
rationalists have been appointed here without any protest being raised
against it. A certain separation between the believing and unbelieving
pastors does indeed now take place, in that they do not maintain
confidential association with one another; but in one church, in one
office, those who confess still stand together with those who deny the
deity of Christ, eating of one bread and drinking of one cup, both alike.
A friend in God's house, a stranger in one's own house! With that
people have satisfied their conscience well enough; but have they also
satisfied the Word of God and the Lutheran confession? St. John says
in his second epistle, verses 10-11: "If there come any unto you, and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid
him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his
evil deeds." To this someone remarks: "Indeed one turns John's
meaning on its head, and is ashamed perhaps to have private
association with open blasphemers and violators of divine truth, say to
drink coffee with them, but — ah! our table has become more sacred to
us than God's table!" — The Zion congregation is thereby once again
justified in its forced separation from the state church, which
harbors and tolerates open false doctrine. Not to be confused with it is
a band of about 20 persons formerly led by a certain Mr. Stammann
and Huschmann, who have long since no longer belonged to the
congregation, because they never were of it. The Senate, to be sure,
lumps us together with this crowd, against which protest is in vain.
Further, nothing has so far been obtainable from the authorities except
permission for their own worship service according to the old
orthodox manner under the direction of Pastor Meinel (residing at
Kleine Rosenstraße 11), who belongs by domicile-right to Bavaria and
here must from time to time obtain a new residence card. We also
have a school of about 30 children, who are confirmed by our pastor.
On the other hand, baptism and marriage are wholly forbidden to him
under threat of immediate expulsion. That we must now seek from the
Hamburg preachers. This situation is sad. Yet all upright Lutherans
abroad unanimously advise that we should bear this as an affliction
and hold out, yet in such a way that in every single case we protest
both against the corruption of the church here and against the
suggestion that, by having our children baptized by state-church
pastors, we wished to enter into the fellowship of the