# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1858_S157
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Notes.    157

II. Abroad.

Judgment of the Romanists themselves on Pastor Löhe. The following article is making the rounds also in the Roman Catholic papers of this country; we read it, among other places, in the local "Herold des Glaubens" and in the "Kath. Kirchenzeitung" of New York:

"Regensburg. The 'B. Volksb.' writes: At the most recent general monthly meeting of the Pius Association, mention was made, among other things, of the extreme unction recently administered by Pastor Löhe to a dying Protestant woman. It was remarked that whoever has observed Löhe's spiritual life for several years will not find this surprising. Some particulars follow. In Neuendettelsau, a village not far from Nuremberg, there is a mission school for the Lutherans in North America and a rescue institution for feeble-minded children. Since October 12, 1854, the Deaconesses (a kind of Sisters of Mercy) have also moved into a palace-like house. All of this is borne, held together, and directed by the admirable activity of the current Inspector, Pastor Wilhelm Löhe. In the second edition of his Agenda of 1853, the Lord's Supper appears to him as the sole aim and center of Christian worship, and preaching without the eucharistic celebration as headless and heartless. From the Mass ritual he adopted as much as the Gospel can bear at all, though the Offertory, as detracting from the merit of Christ, does not belong there in his view. He also wishes to grant the saints a fitting place, and cited St. Herkula, a Swabian deaconess of the eleventh century, as a model in the service of inner mission, etc. In his little book on womanly simplicity he even extols virginity as a holy estate. He and his following also invariably begin their writings with the sign J. N. J., exactly as the Jesuits are wont to do, etc. After this briefly touched-upon background, the speaker held, it should not be surprising that Löhe likewise administered extreme unction, after his own fashion, to a sick woman upon her request."

In a later issue of the "Kath. Kirchenzeitung" of New York we further read the following:

"From Middle Franconia, March 24. From the royal Upper Consistory a decree has just now been issued to all pastors of the Protestant Church, under date of the 5th of this month, through the royal Consistories, concerning the extreme-unction affair of Pastor Löhe in Neuendettelsau, in which it is stated that he was flatly forbidden, for all cases, to perform such an act again, which was therefore, in order to forestall any further arbitrary proceedings of this kind with all the reliability that safeguards church order, deemed necessary to bring to the knowledge and, respectively, the observance of all clergy. (Ap3.)"

Mission to the Jews. How distressing and sad the state of so-called mission work among heathens and Jews sometimes presently appears, so that it becomes somewhat understandable that men like Ströbel regard the whole mission enterprise of our time as a sign of the last time of the falling-away, appears, among other things, from a passage which we find in the "Blätter für die evangelische Mission unter Israel," edited by Gottheil in Cannstatt, in the September issue of the year 1857. There it says namely:

"Another Israelite said to us quite thoughtfully: 'If I were to die tomorrow, would I indeed be condemned because I have not honored Jesus Christ?' My father answered: 'Our heavenly Father looks upon the heart. The Israelite who feels and laments his spiritual misery, and waits for the Messiah, honors Him in a certain measure also, even if not expressly. There are day-birds and night-birds. If a day-bird is kept in a dark place, it does not follow from this that it is hostile to the day. Many a soul which, for lack of instruction concerning the Messiah Jesus Christ, has remained in ignorance, can nevertheless have an inclination toward Him by virtue of the