# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 01 05_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Scholz (of Zittau in Saxon Upper Lusatia). He arrived last May, sent to America by the German society, already mentioned several times in this paper, conducted by Pastor Löhe, and presently serves a Lutheran congregation near Nashville, Illinois (40 miles from here), which has likewise called him as its pastor, and before which he was ordained by the Lutheran pastor Bünger here.

The third of whom we report is the former candidate of the preaching office, Mr. Wolf (of Hanover), who arrived here together with the last-named, and presently serves as pastor of the German Evangelical-Lutheran congregation at Perryville, Perry Co., Mo., having received his ordination to this office from the Lutheran pastor Gruber in Perry Co.

The last, the former candidate of theology, Mr. A. G. G. Francke, of Meinersen in Hanover, was likewise sent to America by the above-named German society, and arrived here in December of the year just past. He has accepted a call to the pastorate of the Lutheran congregation in and around Dover, Lafayette Co., Mo., was publicly and solemnly ordained to this office on the 29th of December last in the Trinity Church of the local Lutheran congregation, and is presently on his way to the place of his appointment.

We report this with all the greater joy, the fewer faithful workers are found here precisely in the great harvest of the wide West. With deep sorrow we must see how here, because the shortage of Lutheran preachers is so great, more and more of our Lutheran fellow believers are daily seduced — some by the fanatical Methodist emissaries, some by the indifferentist United-Evangelical missionaries, some by the rationalist belly-preachers — and estranged and torn away from the Church forever. May the Lord of the great harvest strengthen and bless the new workers, so that through them too His name may be hallowed here, His kingdom advanced, and His will accomplished. Amen.

God's Judgment on Jesuit Presumption.

A Jesuit in France preached a sermon in the year 1678, in which he challenged Jacob Pielton, preacher of the Huguenots in the Principality of Orange, to refute, if he could, the arguments in favor of the doctrine that the host is changed into the true body of Christ, and that it must therefore be worshiped. Pielton did so before a large crowd, in a thorough and convincing manner. The Jesuit himself was in the church and felt himself defeated. He therefore took care not to attack Pielton any further with arguments from Scripture and the Church Fathers, but instead stepped forward and sought to extricate himself from his embarrassment in a manner that defied God.

"Great God!" he said in the following sermon — "how canst Thou suffer that Thy service (through the Mass), the most glorious and holy of services, should be held to be idolatrous? If it is true that we are idolaters and the priests deceivers — where, then, are Thy lightning bolts, Thy thunderbolts, to shatter us deceivers and idolaters?" Thereupon he turned to the altar, on which the consecrated host stood, and continued: "Yes, my Savior, I turn to Thee, and beg Thee that Thou wouldst pronounce judgment in our cause by a miracle! If we are idolaters when we worship Thy holy sacrament, then let fire fall from heaven upon us, as Elijah did upon the priests of Baal. Strike our altars with Thy thunder, and Thou wilt, by such a judgment, bring us out of error, and fully convince us that we are idolaters."

With these presumptuous words the Jesuit, on the 19th of June 1678, challenged God to a demonstrative sign and wonder. It was given to him; for God does not allow Himself to be mocked. Ten days later, on Wednesday the 29th of June, on the Feast of Peter and Paul, a fearful storm arose in the sky; a thunderbolt struck into the church next to the great altar, and indeed just as the sacrifice of the Mass was being performed. The thunderbolt threw the mass-priest to the ground on his back. Lightning also struck the nearest chapel to the left of the choir, and burned the altar cloths to powder, for Mass was likewise being read there at that moment. Several persons were injured, and at the church tower the fire had to be fought until evening.

(See Wölbling's Christian Histories, p. 41.)

Note. — We should indeed like to see how the "Wahrheitsfreund" will report the above story to its readers, in order to whitewash its dear Jesuits once again. In No. 8 of the "Lutheraner" we related how the Jesuits promised a Reformed preacher that, if he recanted, they would "preserve his life," but then, after the recantation had taken place, when he wished to hold them to the word they had given, mocked him still further and said: they had meant this of eternal life. This the "Wahrheitsfreund" knows how to turn to the praise of the Jesuits. He quotes, namely, our report in our last number as follows: "The Lutheraner too, in its last number, makes the bitter reproach against the Jesuits, of having brought a Reformed preacher back to Popery and of having promised him eternal salvation instead of temporal life." Here the beloved reader has an example of recent times illustrating "Jesuit morality." One sees from this that the editor of the Wahrheitsfreund has himself gone to school with those whom he defends, and thus does honor to his teachers. He has evidently well grasped the principle of Jesuit morality, that the end sanctifies the means, and "that one need not keep one's word, when one had no intention of keeping it."

"I am a worm, and no man; a scorn of men, and despised of the people." Ps. 22, 7.

From this saying Luther makes the following application:

Holy Scripture is God's Word, written — and (so to speak) spelled out in letters and formed into letters — just as Christ is the eternal Word of God veiled in humanity. And just as Christ was treated and dealt with in the world, so it goes also with the written Word. It is a worm and no book, reckoned against other books. For such honor of studying, reading, considering, retaining, and using is not shown to it as to other human writings: if it fares well, it lies under the bench, etc. Others tear it to pieces, crucify it, and inflict every torment upon it, until they twist and stretch it to their own heresy, opinion, and willfulness, and at last altogether pervert it, kill it, and bury it, so that it is thrust out of the world and forgotten; and in its place sits the whore with the golden cup, with her dreck-litanies and dreck-legends and other sectarian books. But it must nonetheless remain and rise again; no guarding or resisting helps against that.

Therefore it is indeed a good sign, to whomever this precious gift is given, that he has love and delight in Scripture, gladly reads it, and holds it in high honor and worth. Him God assuredly honors in return, in that he bears the true seal of the called and elect saints, and belongs among the company of the apostles and other saints, who do not side with the damned world in holding that Christ is a worm, a scorn of men and despised of the people — but confess with St. Peter that he is the Son of the living God, Matt. 16, 16, and that Scripture was written by the Holy Spirit. (L. W. IX, 1358.)

The Eleventh Commandment.

A preacher visited his sick schoolmaster, whom he asked what he was consoling himself with. The latter answered: With the eleventh commandment. "What?" said the preacher, "with the eleventh commandment? How does that go, then?" The sick man then recited the last verse of Luther's hymn, "These are the holy Ten Commandments":

May the Lord Jesus Christ help us in this,
who has become our Mediator!
With our own doing all is lost,
we earn nothing but pure wrath. Kyrie eleison.

Was that not well comforted? (See Schwedler in the Lutheran Housebook.)

Paid:
First half of the 3rd volume, Mr. G. Hr. Brockschmidt Sr.
3rd volume, Mr. W. Flittner.

Received for the Lutheran Seminary in Altenburg, Mo., from Lutherans near Columbia, Ill., $1.50.

For the Lutheran mission to the heathen on the Cass River, Mich., from Dr. Bünger $1.75, from Mr. Petersen 50 cts., from a person unnamed $1.00, from A. Gräber $1.00, from M. Stephan $5.00.

Printed by Weber and Olshausen.