# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1858_S186
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

186 Nassau in Ecclesiastical Perspective at the Beginning of 1858.

it works. (3, 290.) But as regards the spiritual gifts in particular
(e.g. speaking in tongues), it is to be maintained that only their reawakening
can give the needful light on their appearance at the beginning and their full
significance for the flourishing of the congregation. (3, 130.) — Such
an examination will doubtless lead to the acknowledgment that here the
Christian Israel of God has received again the Urim and Thummim, that a
new Joshua is being raised up and the second temple built to completion.
(2. 3. 1, 30 f.) Hence, too, the great responsibility of those who resist;
for the future of the churches and peoples hangs on their conduct toward
this grace of God; the rejection of this greatest and
last help of God must receive its due punishment in the seduction and
tyranny of the Antichrist. (2, 87 ff.)

Nassau in Ecclesiastical Perspective at the Beginning of 1858.

P-s. You have doubtless waited for word from me at the turn of the year;
but the very fact that I did not write sooner may already be hint enough
to you that there is still nothing more important to report from here.
— As for the outward shaping of our Lutheran-ecclesiastical circumstances,
we had hoped, especially in the last months of the past year, with great
longing, that our Nassau state government would follow the example of
Baden and grant our many times repeated petitions for ecclesiastical
recognition and toleration. There seemed also to be some hope of success
for our petitions; but month goes by after month, and we remain in the
old spot. Perhaps our opponents with the higher state government will
succeed this time too with their old schemes against us, namely by
representing us and the cause of our Church to our highest state
authorities, through open lies and distortions of every circumstance, in
such a light that one can indeed hardly blame the same authorities
when they refuse us all recognition. To recognize any higher grounds
and motives in the Lutheran-ecclesiastical movement, one is quite
unable; one regards it only as the product of the intrigues of a few
overwrought minds and of mere wholly unwarranted proselytizing. So we
may do as we will — we have made the water muddy; if we keep more
quiet, and no conversions to our Church occur, then it is said that the
cause of the Lutherans is in decline and near its downfall; if it goes the
other way, then we are the disturbers of the peace, etc. According to
credible reports, in one place where, by conscientious count, we have
214 members of our Church, the number of the same has been given out
as having sunk to five families. But why should I weary you and the
readers of Freimund with an enumeration of all such easily conceivable
pretexts and counter-arguments, with which opponents