# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1858_S96
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

96 Church-Historical Items of the Day.

wonderment-worthy poverty in which so many native-born preachers in
particular are mired in matters of this kind.

Tennessee Synod. From the "Luth. Standard" we learn that in this synod
the confessional question still has not been brought to a conclusion,
but that its resolution is becoming ever more insuperable. An essay by
Pastor Wetzel touching this matter, dated Feb. 2, in the named paper,
closes with the words: "Therefore, brethren of the Tennessee Synod, a
word to you. You are approaching perhaps the most important and most
decisive state of affairs that has ever presented itself in the whole
history of your synod. You are approaching the decision of the question
of altering or improving your synod's constitution, or perhaps making an
entirely new one. Important, good or bad, consequences can result from
your proceeding, since the confessional question is without doubt the
most important one bound up with altering the constitution — I hope,
therefore, that it will be made a test question. This is a matter that
lies at the foundation of the synod as a Lutheran body, and if you
cannot first assure yourselves that the entire body of symbolical books
will be made the confessional basis of the synod in the new or improved
constitution, then it is just as well if you leave your constitution as
it is with regard to the other matters you wish to alter. For if you
cannot securely settle this point, there is no use in improving the
others." We wish and hope that the Tennessee Synod, which was faithful
in a time of general apostasy, will not now, after it has again stirred
everywhere and so many are penitently returning to the confession of the
fathers, suddenly come to a standstill (or fall back), and that the
Lord's word will not prove true of it: "The last shall be first, and the
first shall be last." Matt. 20:16.

The American Bible Society has for several years been occupied with
improving the English Bible translation. After years of labor, as the
Reform. K. Z. reports, a committee appointed for the purpose succeeded
in completing this work and printing an edition in octavo format. But
now so many unfavorable voices were raised against this proceeding that
the society's managers found it advisable to call together an assembly
of the members, to decide the question: should one go forward or
backward? — It was resolved almost unanimously to stay with the old and
to set the new printing aside. It was thought that such an undertaking
ought to be carried out by official representatives of the church and
not by the managers of an independent society. Among the managers are
21 Presbyterians, 7 Episcopalians, 4 Methodists, 2 Dutch Reformed, 1
Quaker, and 1 Baptist.

II. Abroad.

The Church Visitations in Saxony. A judgment on their significance and
how, without standing visitors (of the kind our synod has, by God's
grace), that institution has not achieved its purpose is what we read in
the preface to the current volume of the Saxon Church and School Paper.
It says there: "One would be indulging in a bitter illusion if one
thought that a new era for our church would thereby be renewed through
this visitation. Its conduct and effect have, as we know, quite often
fallen significantly short of expectations and wishes, and the inner
spiritual life of the congregations has had all too little benefit from
it. But in these cases that is not the fault of the visitation itself,
but is occasioned by the persons concerned. A rich stimulus could, at
the very least, proceed from it to the congregations. And we have heard
of a number of cases in which this did indeed occur. And it is already
worth something that the individual congregation saw and felt itself to
be a member of the whole. The main thing, of course, is always the
faithful work of the individual pastors. If this is lacking, then even
the passing excitement that the visitation brings cannot produce much
fruit. It is all the more necessary, therefore, to consider fixing the
blessing of it, at least in part, through a lasting institution. The
nearest and most fitting course is that the individual deans be given as
their task a regular visitation of their dioceses — without which
recurring, personal acquaintance with the individual congregations,
their conditions, and the pastoral care over them, a wholesome
oversight, going beyond mere outward administration, of the dioceses is
not even possible — but without any auditing of church accounts!"

Dr. Baumgarten, having already previously been dismissed from the
theological examination commission, has now, as is reported from Rostock
on Jan. 11, also, "on account of his doctrinal deviations from the
confession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church," on the basis of an
opinion of the Grand Ducal Consistory, been removed from his academic
chair as well.