# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1858_S128
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

128 Church-Contemporary Notes.

[the] condition, both the accused maiden and the plaintiff expressly consented; but the plaintiff afterward did not keep to this his promise, nor wished to keep to it—so the accused maiden would likewise be, on account of the plaintiff's claims regarding marriage, rightly released and counted free, and each party is permitted to marry according to his opportunity. H. fol. 178.

Church-Contemporary Notes.
I. America.

The Mennonites. In the "Christian People's Paper," an organ of the Mennonites published in Milford Squär, Bucks Co., Pa., of March 10 of this year, we find an article on the question: "Will the Mennonite community raise itself to a truly ecclesiastical standpoint, or not?" It says among other things, as follows: "A church must be at one, 1. in the doctrine of salvation in Christ; 2. in the sacraments; 3. in good works; and 4. in the admission or non-admission of external things, in so far as each person has liberty in them and in so far as he does not. You (Mennonites), however, are not at one in the following points:

1. In doctrine in general.
2. In the form of baptism, etc.
3. In the Lord's Supper and foot-washing.
4. In regard to other Christian constitutions.
5. In the holding of civil offices.
6. In the use of the [civil] authority.
7. In catechesis and Sunday school.
8. In the matter of missions.
9. In the choice and calling of preachers and deacons.
10. In the preparation of preachers for office.
11. In the salarying of preachers.
12. In the written propagation of Christian doctrine.

In this and in still many other points the Lord speaks in our conscience, when we ask ourselves honestly, that you are not at one; and hence it comes that the Mennonite community has, as a church, never yet been able to enjoy in full measure the blessing from above.

Now if the Mennonite community, as a Christian church, wishes to maintain its standpoint, and not gradually, little by little, die off as a community and go to ruin, then it must come more under the denial of its own will. and bring together its whole stock of essays and opinions, as well as the various confessions of faith that the different divisions of the community have from time to time drawn up and established for themselves, and take up that on which they can then come nearest to uniting, and regard it as a common doctrine of faith and order. Then, oh then, will the Lord be mightily with this church and bless it both with growth and with godliness."

The Pope. The "Wahrheitsfreund" [Friend of Truth] of Cincinnati, in its issue of March 11 of this year, reviews a new Catholic monthly that is coming out in Springfield, Ill., and knows nothing to object to in it except that it writes "Pabst" and not "Papst." The Wahrheitsfreund remarks: "Papst with a b (Pabst) is Protestant spelling."!

Halle. Here, on October 20 of last year, prompted by Dr. Stier, superintendent at Schkeuditz, a so-called union conference was held, in order to deal Lutheranism there the final mortal blow. But the result has been entirely the opposite. The pastors there of more Lutheran sentiment have been awakened by it, as the Evangelical Church Gazette writes, "to bring the rotten confusion of the church questions to light, and to tear away some of the veils from open as well as from creeping unionism."

Errata in the previous issue:

Page 87, line 5 from the top, read after "Consistorium" — but also in other Lutheran churches lay presbyteries alongside the consistories.
Page 88, read "Greser" instead of "Greher."
Page 90, read "Pfarrer" before "Löhe."