# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1857_S251
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Hymnbook Uproar in Hannover.   251

will be seen to resign, and that this burdensome oversight will thus be shaken off. *) — The new hymnbook does indeed, for all its excellences, have its faults too, like every human work; but these lie in a quite different field from where, according to the adversaries' account, they are supposed to lie. One may raise the often-discussed question whether it was well done to publish a school hymnbook which is not to serve further for church purposes, and one may under the prevailing circumstances attach to it the further question whether, precisely here, given the heterogeneous character of the church hymnbook, particular evils might not be called forth by such a school hymnbook; but these questions have not been raised — to discuss them the opponents lack all equipment. — How the matter will finally turn out is not yet to be foreseen. The Ministry of Ecclesiastical and Educational Affairs is at present occupied with settling the affair; let us hope and pray that strength and wisdom be given it from above, to cut down in the name of the LORD the heathen that surround it (Ps. 118:10). — That the adversaries are nevertheless not altogether easy in their minds about the business, for all their sonorous phrases, we have seen with pleasure from an article in the Zeitung für Norddeutschland, the most church-hostile paper in our land, which for once openly admits that the ecclesiastical authority was formally within its rights in introducing the book, and which then does not deceive itself that the threats made in case it should be carried through (e.g. of mass withdrawal from the Lutheran Church and going over to the Reformed) are mere talk, from which deeds are hardly likely to follow — that on the contrary, if no concession were made, matters would remain as they are, that is, the people would settle down again, which of course would be unwelcome to the writer and his associates. Therefore the old song about the necessity of lay representation in the government of the Church is at once struck up again, as we have had to hear it every year since 1848 on certain occasions, and regularly up to the last diet in the second chamber of the general assembly of estates during the deliberation of the budget — the item for the Ministry of Ecclesiastical and Educational Affairs — hitherto, and hopefully in the future as well, without success. The LORD bless and keep us! (Freimund.)

Postscript: On May 9, 1857, the ministry, by the king's command, ordered the introduction of the school hymnbook and of the Lutheran catechism, and dismissed those who protested against it.

*) Behold there the complete replica of our Bavarian history from beginning to end! Let anyone now say once more that there is no unity in the world! But see Luke 11:17-18!   Freimund.