# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1858_S118
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

118 Bavaria.

...conciliatory spirit of both general synods will silence all adversaries and calm all anxious minds, especially since the unshaken trust of the Protestant territorial church in the church government set over it has again shown itself throughout all our proceedings; wherefore we feel ourselves obliged to express our thanks to Your Royal Majesty also for this, that Your Most High Self has called to the supreme direction of our ecclesiastical affairs men who are as faithful to the confession as they are devoted to the King and the constitution."

This address was signed by all the members of the synod, without exception; not one entered any protest or reservation regarding the passage concerning the Oberkonsistorium. So even the few isolated individuals who at the beginning of the synod still counted as opposition must have been won over in the course of it; for otherwise they surely could not have signed this address, or at least not unconditionally. The testimony contained in this address of the general synod weighs heavier than the articles of loose newspaper writers. For in the address the lawful organ called to represent the territorial church has spoken in the name of the church — that organ which proceeded from the free elections of the congregations, elections, moreover, that were carried out not before but after the recent movement, and under its influence.

Let us follow this communication with the words of the presiding officer of the general synod, which will certainly be gladly heard wherever the name Harleß is spoken with respect and love. They read:

Right Reverend, highly honored Gentlemen!

Before all else, I have, at the close, to express to you all together and to each one in particular my most sincere and heartfelt thanks for the dignity and calm, as well as for the earnestness and zeal, with which you have conducted and completed your deliberations and proceedings. If a wholesome fruit — and it is not to be doubted — springs from these our proceedings, then let me also name the spirit to which we owe it. It is the spirit of self-denial, in which each one has set aside what is his own, and set foremost what belongs to the whole, to the mother common to us all, our church. In this spirit you have begun and concluded the proceedings.

But I also thank you further for the declaration of your trust, which you have solemnly attested and set down in writing. This declaration has effaced from my memory many a sleepless night, many a bitter pain of my heart. Yet I do not thank you for my own sake. I thank you for the sake of the good cause. Indeed, to this very thanks I at once attach a request, one that is even more important to me than the thanks itself.

I ask that you now carry this trust out into the congregations. Work to see that they too keep this trust, or win it anew! And if once again misgivings and doubts should arise, tell them they should turn to us with confidence. Truly, so long as these two eyes remain open, they shall never receive an evasive answer.

Remind them at the same time of the enemies of our church, who lie in wait for our weaknesses and smirk in scorn over our discords. Teach them above all to remember the Lord of our church, and to see to it that, for the sake of our faults, our hasty actions, and our sins, the name of this our common Lord be not blasphemed.