# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1857_S313
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

313

Church and Contemporary History.

I. America.

The German Reformed Church of North America has received, under date of the 20th of December of last year, a letter from the "Central Committee for the Inner Mission of the German Ev. Church," whose chairman is v. Bethmann-Hollweg, in which among other things it says: "We have today the joy of being able to inform you that a member of the Central Committee has placed at our disposal, for a young German-American who possesses the requisite gifts and knowledge and who wishes to attend a theological faculty of Germany in order to serve his native church in the manner indicated, an annual stipend of one hundred thalers Prussian currency for the duration of his studies in the mother country. This member has in view herein your church as well as the German Lutheran church of North America and the Kirchenverein des Westens, and leaves, in the event that outstandingly gifted young men should be presented from several quarters for the enjoyment of this stipend, the selection to the undersigned Central Committee. He desires further that, besides the testimonial concerning the excellent natural endowment, the necessary scholarly preparation and the living, believing disposition, which the church authority concerned will issue, the judgment of Prof. Dr. Schaff at Mercersburg in Pennsylvania — a close friend of ours and one exactly acquainted with the present state of scholarship in Germany — be obtained and laid before us. Finally he believes that it would be reassuring to the brethren beyond the ocean themselves if the studies of the young man at so great a distance from home were guided and supervised by a theologically trained member of the Central Committee, namely the court preacher and general superintendent, Dr. Hoffmann."

"The Evangelical Review." Recently there appeared in this quarterly a somewhat more decided critique of Schmucker's American Lutheranism than is otherwise wont to occur in this periodical. The consequence of this was that especially the "Luth. Observer" made every effort to pay the "Review" as it deserved for its boldness — that is, if possible to blow out its light of life. The fanaticism displayed in the "Observer" in this reached so high a degree that even Dr. Hirkey, the editor of the "Olive Branch," felt himself compelled to write among other things the following:

"We have always boasted of the truth, and of our liberty to speak and write it; but alas! to what have we come? Hitherto we stood in the opinion that intolerance and proscription were to be found only among the so-called Old Lutherans; but we have for some time been grieved and wounded, more than we can say, by seeing worse things on the other side! We are for free, willing and sincere discussion, and know that when it is conducted in a Christian spirit the truth must gain and not lose thereby; but every attempt to gag people and to behead them for the sake of their opinions we despise, and will resist to the utmost, so far as our small strength reaches, come whence it may."

How Mr. Pastor Grabau judges of Dr. von Harless in Bavaria. Mr. Pastor Grabau writes as follows in the preface to the 7th volume of his Informatorium of the 15th of September of this year:

"But what do we hear? How are they carrying on now in Bavaria? When we were there in 1853 this did not yet occur to them. But since unhappy Bavaria has a Missourian president in the consistory, who lets every local congregation be the highest court of the church, and who, quite deceitfully or himself deceived, has discovered out of Luther's writings for the spiritual free-rabble the majesty and rights of the spiritual priesthood — as Löber, Keyl and Walther formerly did here still more coarsely — the same phenomena follow, only in a slightly different form, as here. The Missourian-minded Bavarian president of the consistory now confuses the whole land with his doctrine and practice. In genuinely Missourian