# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1880 11 15_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

171

[Gap in the scan: the left edge of this column is missing from the source; line beginnings are lost.]
[…] instruction in it still something
[…] the goal, however, is that everywhere in
[…] also in this subject something
[…] would. Yet a thousand times better it is
[…] piece something should also be lacking,
[…] Christian discipline and upbringing
[…] The most wretched little schoolhouse,
[…] taught there, is in God's
[…] far more useful to the people
[…] palatial public school, from which God's
[…] and upbringing are lacking. Whoever
[…] the public schools, especially
[…] something is known, knows
[…] to be desired remains. Much
[…] but little is usually only
[…] is not my opinion either,
[…] visited no public schools at
[…] often depends much on the circumstances
[…], such as on the teacher and
[…] since now also in a congregation
[…] [rules?], so that the children in the narrow
[…] would have remained behind, then they could
[…] once they have already in God's Word
[…] been instructed and
[…]; for if children stand
[…] of a more mature age, so that they already
[…] some grounding in worldly knowledge
[…] well without danger a public
[…] at least outwardly to order

[…]. If therefore parents send
[…] such a school, then I would like to
[…] give them advice. It has grieved me,
[…] to hear the mother tongue spoken so poorly
[…] and the knowledge of it is
[…] even some Americans know it better than they do.
[…] among many of them into new
[…] regard, especially
[…] their old fatherland occupies in political
[…] standing than before.
[…] regard to the outward advantage
[…] sensible people. They see
[…], which knowledge of the Ger=
[…] in such regions where many
[…] soon occurs to them. Many
[…], that they would give much
[…] only to know German. Even
[…] the usefulness and the outward
[…] regards, so it stands in many
[…] fatherland, knowledge of it
[…] still worse than knowledge of English.
[…] it is hardly worth mentioning
[…] and the spiritual treasures
[…] children only through knowledge of the
[…] can be conveyed. Which
[…], for example, in the devotional books
[…] blessed forebears and our own
[…] I recall once of one
[…] having heard, who set himself
[…] to learn the German language thoroughly.
[…] hymn: "Whoever only the dear
[…] had learned, declared that
[…] for all the trouble and labor that
[…] on the German language had spent,
[…] had been worthwhile. And that was only
[…] hymns of the German Lutheran
[…] through learning the German
[…] children to these treasures
[…] otherwise are they to acquire these
[…] parish school? The public
[…] seldom occasion, the German

language thoroughly. You see, then, that we must not only not let our Lutheran parish schools lapse, but that it is exceedingly important and necessary that more of them still be founded anew. They alone meet all the reasonable requirements that one can make of a school as a Christian institution of upbringing, even in the teaching and learning of all sorts of useful knowledge; for first, there is found in them the above-named foundation of all true morality, in that the children there are not only taught to walk in the fear of God, but are also shown where they are to draw the strength to do so. Second, they are also, under the influence of Christian discipline, nurseries and seedbeds of much useful knowledge. This one purpose, though by far the least of them, is already so lofty and important that all Christians should feel moved to work and contribute according to their means for the maintenance and establishment of such schools. Far more important still than the purpose named is the other, which concerns the eternal salvation of the young. But we will speak of this point another time and on another occasion. P. H. D.

(Submitted by Dr. Sihler.)

The Second Psalm and Our Time.

(Conclusion.)

The closing words of the Psalm accordingly read, from verses 10 to 12: "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way; for his wrath will soon be kindled, but blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

As for the kings and their potentates, who were formerly designated as such, who rose up against the LORD and his anointed, and the lords who took counsel together against both: the question arises, who is to take this admonishing and chastising of the present time in hand as God's servants and instruments? The court chaplains would indeed have the nearest calling to it. But, God help us, where would such be found now, like Nathan of old against David, or John the Baptist against Herod? There were also such in the time of the New Testament, as for example Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who for so long refused the holy Sacrament to the Emperor Theodosius until he did penance for a cruel act he had committed. Likewise, in later times, the Lutheran Church too has not lacked court chaplains who had courage enough to sharply rebuke their princes and their potentates with God's Word for this or that sin.

But where are such men in the present time? That the rationalist, that is, unbelieving court chaplains do not do this goes without saying; but it also belongs to the curse of the so-called church union that the pietistically believing, yet themselves unionistically minded, court chaplains do not do it either; for this ruinous and damnable union of our century has taken away precisely the fear of God's Word, which this union rejects, and has trodden underfoot the pure confession of the Lutheran Church grounded alone in Holy Scripture. Hence it comes about that even the Christ-believing court chaplains lack the courage to confess and to bear witness, publicly and especially rebuking with God's Word their princes and their potentates and judges for all kinds of sins that are not hidden from them. And it would be as a miracle of God if even one of these court chaplains, through God's pure and simple Word, were to become sober from the intoxication of the false, unscriptural union, cast away its cup of delusion, and afterward seek to convince his prince of the ruinousness and damnableness of this work of union. That he would thereby fall into disfavor and be removed from his office is, to be sure, to be expected; but that God would regard this with grace and have pleasure in his testimony is certain.

Since, then, such rightly believing and courageous court chaplains are lacking in the present time, it almost seems as though our Lord God would otherwise "admonish and chastise" the kings and their ministers and counselors who are still curable.

Among his remedies belong, first of all, the excesses of the humanistically or atheistically-materialistically minded, but in either case unbelieving, liberal deputies in the German Reichstag and in the diets of the individual states. This party has until now always been in the great majority, and it had nothing else in mind than to muzzle the Church, to rob the people of their simple faith in the Bible, to pursue a perverted popular education, and to undermine the fear of God among subjects in their conduct toward their authorities.

At the same time their endeavor was directed toward pushing through laws that served not the common good but only individuals, namely their like-minded allies, the capitalists and great businessmen, through whose operations it came about and still comes about that money and goods fall ever more into the hands of the few, that the poverty of the masses increases, and that an even general prosperity is made impossible.

No less has this corrupt and ruinous party largely brought about lax criminal legislation, and, in its Bible-hostile humanism, agitated against the death penalty even for convicted premeditated murderers, so that even God-fearing princes almost never sign their death sentences, but commute them to lifelong imprisonment.

But our Lord God has yet more remedies to "admonish and chastise" the kings and their counselors and officials in this our antichristian age. There are the unbelieving scholars, from professors at universities down to village schoolteachers, who are intent on instilling, orally and in writing, antichristian unbelief into their hearers and readers. And to these are joined those like-minded publishers and writers of Bible-hostile newspapers and periodicals, and of immoral novels and romances.

And all these work together with those unbelieving liberal politicians as if in tacit agreement, to deify the human spirit and, as modern stormers of heaven, to cast the almighty God down from his throne.

What wonder, then, if as a result unbelief spreads ever more into the poor German people and the fear of God is ever more brazenly cast off, so that murderous attempts occur even against God-fearing crowned heads, and the words of Holy Scripture, "Fear God, honor the king!" are blasphemously struck in the face?

What wonder, if as a result of the so dreadfully spread unbelief and falling away from God's