# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1858_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Bavaria. 121

...gelical [Church] of Bavaria has been restored again in the eyes of foreign lands, and the congregation of the Lord in our fatherland has shown that, according to His promise, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

We shall preserve in grateful remembrance the manifold, often deeply searching instructions and reminders that fell to us from this table. We depart from this hall with humble praise of our highly praised Redeemer, who has confirmed to us His word: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"; with touched remembrance of the fine hours we spent therein, with, if possible, still heightened reverence, devotion, and confidence toward our noble superiors, with a sense of increased brotherly concord and love for one another, with joyful hopes for the future of our church, and with the sacred resolve to neglect nothing, but honestly to do everything that may be required of us for the fulfillment of this hope.

May the Lord our God bless and keep you, enlightened, faithful chief shepherds of His congregation, in whom we gladly perceive not only our superiors but also examples in our calling. May He crown your office still further with strength and grace from on high!

May the Lord our God bless and keep the King, who in His name wields the scepter of government with Christian wisdom and justice, and gladden his heart through a people that is happy in this, that it walks according to the apostolic rule: Fear God and honor the King!

May the Lord our God bless and keep us all; may He shepherd and exalt His inheritance forever! Hallelujah!

Fully worthy to stand beside the Ansbach general synod is the Bayreuth one, which was opened a few days after the close of the former, on November 4. It consisted of forty-five members, thirty clerical and fifteen lay; among the latter, men such as Count von Giech and Baron von Rotenhan of Renntweinsdorf, and others whose names have a good ring even beyond Bavaria. After the Royal Commissioner had held up to the synod the example of the synod of 1853 for imitation, the presiding officer opened the assembly with the following words:

"As I step today into your midst, my honored assembly, I feel, as so often in life, that memory is sometimes more powerful and effective than the present. For in these very rooms the general synod of the year 1853 met and gave its good testimony cheerfully, joyfully, and in unity. At that time we thought — as a member of the assembly at Ansbach expressed it — that the kingdom of God was near. If one pictured the nearness or the coming of this kingdom in that peaceful shape which the general synod of 1853 bore, that was a human error. For where the sun of divine light makes its way, it first stirs up the darkness, in order to break it. And the course of development of the divine kingdom on earth does not bear the shape of outward and apparent peace, but brings the earnestness of strife and of struggle. And so it came to pass. Those movements arose which redounded to the joy of the enemies outside our church, and to the deep pain and deep sorrow of the friends of our church at home and abroad. And yet — so I hope — neither the one nor the other is justified in its full extent. For where old and hidden damages break open