# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1857_S350
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

350   The Ecclesiastical Movements in Bavaria.

other refusing resolutions, many church boards have been considerably toned down in the hopes they cherished from their activity, and have become somewhat subdued.

With regard to the hymnal, then, the latest movement has thus far no success whatever to boast of. It is to be hoped that the forthcoming General Synod will also have prudence enough not to tamper with a book which is already circulated in Bavaria in more than four hundred thousand copies, and thereby to bring about incalculable confusion in the territorial church. For the reporter holds the continued possession of this excellent book to be more important — because more influential for the churchly life of the congregation and more far-reaching for the formation of the rising generation — than the questions concerning liturgy and church discipline, little as he means to deny to these their high importance. The spirit which came to light so sadly in the recent movements in Bavaria is chiefly a product of our abolished hymnal. Through it the effect of evangelical preaching, which for some time past has been heard among us not merely here and there, was continually hindered and weakened. For the spirit prevailing in the hymnal gradually becomes the property of the congregation; through its continued use in school and church, in the house, and at all the encounters and vicissitudes of life, it passes over into the flesh and blood of the congregation. But with our abolished hymnal this spirit was the rationalistic one — that is, a spirit which does not know the fundamental truths of the divine Word, which passes them over in silence, denies them, sets them aside, and which, instead of sound, vigorous poetry, which it is far too feeble to appreciate, knows how to offer only insipid, watery rhyming. A territorial church, on the other hand, which has a good hymnal into which it has settled, is able for a long time to bear and to overcome much that is evil which comes upon it in ecclesiastical respects — even unevangelical preaching — without too great harm. Therefore the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria will recognize what a jewel she possesses in her new hymnal, and will be ready for an extreme struggle with those who would in any way lay hands upon it or rob her of it. Great is the number of its opponents, especially in the city congregations; for the present generation has had its teeth set on edge by the long enjoyment of sour grapes, and in their arrogance and ingratitude they say of the blessing newly offered them: Our soul loatheth this light bread. May God's mercy prevent that such vile ingratitude of many be punished upon the whole territorial church by the withdrawal of the good that has been offered. If the gracious God preserves this good to us, then we possess in our hymnal a blessing which elsewhere men have for a long time striven in vain to obtain, and will perhaps also in the near future — precisely in consequence of the movement that has gone out from Bavaria — strive for in vain. Therefore, even if the introduction of the new hymnal should for a long time to come be the one shining deed of our present Upper Consistory