# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1857_S329
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

A Monument Is to Be Erected at Wittenberg to Melanchthon, the "Teacher of Germany," etc. 329

which was once the hearth of life of every family, at which old and young, parents and children, masters and servants warmed themselves, is on the decline in house and school."

That is a language such as has long not been heard from the lecterns of the learned schools! And this voice rings out from Weimar! May the labor of this dear man be a blessed one! May he, "by the hand of thorough exposition of Scripture," come very soon to the conviction that the confession of these lands rests firmly upon "the Book of books," and may he lead very many of his pupils to that confession, still so widely misjudged and despised! May he stand together in unity of spirit with the two younger of his colleagues who hold fast to the confession! But may he also keep a watchful eye that it does not happen again, as it did at the last examination, that under his own eyes books are distributed as prizes such as "Burmeister's History of Creation," a well-known learned effusion of a materialistic natural scientist against the doctrine of creation of the Holy Scriptures!

(From the "Freimund.")

A Monument Is to Be Erected at Wittenberg to Melanchthon, the "Teacher of Germany."

Over this everyone will certainly rejoice; for Melanchthon deserves that title, because he was what the title ascribes to him, and as such in this age of monuments he may well deserve a monument too. Yet a word struck us as peculiar which we lately read in a public periodical, and about which we should also like to say a few words. It was this: "We rejoice sincerely when justice is done to this great Reformer and light of Germany, even if in many cases from the Lutheran and strictly confessional side. But if therewith at the same time an earnest atonement is not to be rendered for the rabies theologorum (the madness of the theologians), against which Melanchthon bore witness in his dying sigh, then it would be better for some to keep their hands off such a monument, lest the word of the Lord about building the tombs of the prophets fall upon them as well."

Since these words contain two distinct points, we too will give our answer in a twofold respect.

1) "Justice" has certainly at all times been done to this "great Reformer and light of Germany" from the Lutheran and also from the strictly confessional side. If one were to belittle Melanchthon's merits, one would make oneself guilty of great ingratitude toward God, who gave this "teacher of Germany." One would also be little like Luther and his judgment of Melanchthon's learning, who says of him: "Although I too am a Master and Doctor, and scarcely one of Eck's titles is wanting to me, still I am not ashamed when the spirit of this grammarian