# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1857_S342
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

342   The Ecclesiastical Movements in Bavaria.

to "elect men of intelligence and of courage, who are resolved to act in the spirit of the address that has been submitted, through all its consequences." Finally, a few days before the election already appointed, printed ballots with twelve names each for every one of the five parish districts were distributed in great quantity by the somewhat enlarged address committee and sent to the voters in their dwellings. Something similar was indeed done by the church-minded as well, but given the prevailing mood it was to be assumed that a large number of well-disposed persons too would follow the stronger current. Moreover, the election committee was clever enough by no means to propose men of an extreme tendency, so that many voters who did not possess the gift of discerning spirits were unable to see in those proposed any unchurchly men or enemies of the church. The result of the election was therefore by no means a surprising one: the candidates put up by the so-called liberal party were elected to the church boards with a number of votes on average five times as large as that which fell to the church-minded. It must be said to the honor of those elected that they are throughout men of unblemished civil and moral character, indeed that not a few among them are men with whom, had they been elected under other circumstances, it would certainly have been possible to get along. But the bad thing was the impression under which they were elected, the expectation that was cherished of them, and which it was made a point of honor for them not to disappoint. They were to do deeds — yet not such as contributed to the building of the church, but such as so-called public opinion, the liberalism prevailing in the papers that set the tone, demanded of them as the representatives of the congregation.

With the church boards thus renewed by half, the liturgy introduced in October had therefore to be submitted to a new deliberation. This took place in the first days of January of this year. The result of these deliberations was by no means the same in all the churches. At the one church they decided by a small majority for retaining the liturgy; at a second, with the votes equally divided, for shortening it; at two, for its complete abolition; and at one they did not enter upon the deliberation at all. By four churches, however, a plenary assembly of all the church boards of the city was urgently demanded, for deliberation and decision upon this as well as upon other common affairs. Unfortunately, at the last General Synod the coming together of the various parish church boards into one assembly had itself been moved and resolved for cities with several parish districts — for the purpose of an easier understanding concerning the introduction of the liturgy — had been reported on, guilelessly, by the Upper Consistory and approved by the King. The Upper Consistory could therefore not oppose the demand of the Nuremberg church boards. The deanery was instructed to summon all the church boards of the city (sixty laymen and fifteen clergymen besides the dean) to a deliberation upon the question