# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1911 06 13_S190
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

190

Our children shall have something far better; they shall, according to God's command and the wish of all true Christians, actually be reared, and therefore attend a Lutheran parish school. And where there is not yet such a school in a congregation, we want to press with all earnestness that one be established. And we want to cherish and tend these precious, dear Lutheran parish schools of ours, even if we must spend much of our earthly goods on them. The capital is well invested.

We teachers want to become ever more aware of our high, precious task and then work in our schools with all faithfulness and all diligence. The work is truly worthy and deserving of the full strength of a man.

We pastors want to continue, as before, so also henceforth, to found and promote parish schools. Indeed, we want to do this with even greater zeal than ever before, for Satan rages more than ever against our schools. How many plausible-sounding pretexts he can bring against the establishing of a school! He whispers to us: "Your congregation cannot yet afford a school," or: "You have no right to take the children out of the good public school and demand that they be content with what you can provide in the school," and more of the same. But we will not give ear to these seemingly cogent reasons, but simply do what we recognize from God's Word to be our duty, and as true shepherds also take up the little lambs, the children in our congregations, and with all faithfulness and self-denial establish, maintain, and increase Christian schools for them.

May God grant to us pastors, teachers, and members the accomplishing along with the willing! F. H. S.

Albert Friedrich Hoppe.

On May 31 Professor A. F. Hoppe, D. theol., fell asleep gently and quietly in his home in St. Louis, at the advanced age of nearly 83 years. His funeral took place on June 3, at which his longtime pastor, Rev. C. C. Schmidt, preached the funeral sermon on Phil. 1:21. Quiet and retiring, not known to many, he had lived for many years untiringly active for our fine large edition of Luther's Complete Writings. But to those who knew him more closely, the pious, kindly, modest scholar, enthusiastic for Luther and his works, will remain unforgotten. Those farther removed as well, who cherish a grateful remembrance of him for his services to our Luther edition, will gladly learn something more particular about his life and work. We therefore print, with a few omissions, an autobiography which the deceased wrote out in his own hand several years ago, not for publication, but, as it says there, "at the request of my only daughter, so that after my death she may give information about my life's course to those who might desire it." Exactly as described here was the man to whom these lines are meant to secure a memorial of honor. L. F.

I.

I was born on July 24, 1828, in Rostock. My father is Joachim Christian Hoppe, surgeon; my mother Charlotte, née Ludewig, daughter of Magister Joachim Heinrich Ludewig, professor of the English language at the state university. My dear mother died young, when I was about four years old; but I remember that she had me pray every evening before going to sleep. After that my grandmother on my mother's side, the widowed Frau Magister Katharina Maria Ludewig, née Wichmann, took a mother's place with me. From her I learned the two beautiful Christmas hymns: "Praise God, ye Christians, one and all" and "From heaven above to earth I come." I do not want to leave unmentioned that our godly maidservant told us children the history of the Passion. In 1839 I entered the Quinta of the Gymnasium at Rostock and took my final examination at Easter 1849. Religious instruction at the Gymnasium was not well provided for in several classes. In Quinta there was indeed a believing religion teacher, Doctor E., but in Quarta and Tertia he was followed by the rationalist teacher M., who began instruction with a prayer of this sort: Thou, whom no word can name, may thy unseen presence enliven each of our thoughts and feelings; guide them, thou Uncreated One, to thyself, etc. In Sekunda Doctor B. gave the religious instruction, in which he presented to us the various gnostic systems, but not our Savior Jesus Christ. Finally in Prima we again had the good fortune to get a believing teacher, Magister K., second preacher at St. Mary's Church. He also confirmed me. On my leaving school, Professor Busch gave me the advice, well worth taking to heart for every student, that I should make myself thoroughly familiar, in the original languages, with the textbook underlying my studies, namely the Bible. Immediately afterward I had to fulfill my military duty, but was not much hindered in my studies by it, since after only half a year I was assigned to the Landwehr reserve. My studies were then mainly guided and influenced by Professor Franz Delitzsch, who took me up very affectionately, indeed came for me for a walk almost daily. I also had good support in Professor Otto Krabbe. When Delitzsch was then called away to Erlangen, I followed him there and studied there for a year. Having returned to Rostock, I found there Professor Philippi, who had come from Dorpat, and who from then on faithfully took me under his care, in such a way that he not only held exegetical conversatoria in his house with me and other fellow students, but also (as Delitzsch had already done) went with us together to the Holy Communion. In 1853 I passed my Tentamen and then first took a position as a private tutor in the country with Pastor M. Staak, until in 1855 I married the widow of Court Councillor Crull and emigrated with her and two children (one of whom is Professor Crull in Fort Wayne) to America, provided with a letter of recommendation from Consistorial Councillor Kliefoth to Professor Walther.

In New York, where I found President Wyneken convalescing from an illness, I found at Pastor Brohm's an invitation from Walther that I should for the time being take lodging with my family at his house, until a position had been found for me. This is what happened. At the beginning of October 1855 we moved in with Walther. Yet although otherwise so many calls came in, "that we would like to," as Walther put it, "turn out preachers on a lathe," everything now remained quiet, and no