# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1877_S25
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 25 —

in pure doctrine and with pure books. And now there are among us such frivolous people who will not use pure books because this and that in them does not please them. God can easily take our present freedom from us. Some signs of it have already been seen. For when the unbelievers speak of freedom, they mean only their own, but the slavery of others.

When some teachers say in excuse that the children do not understand what is in the books, or that they forget it again, that is quite wrong. It is precisely from what people learn in their early youth that their character is formed, and there the poison also works, even if secretly. What an outcry there would be if a baker were to mix a little arsenic into the bread! And here it is a question not of bodily but of spiritual life.

On this occasion it was also pointed out that some songs, both religious and secular, are sung in the schools that are quite dreadful. The pastors should keep a watchful eye on such things too.

Likewise inquiry was made about the hymnals used in our congregations. Does one still find the Pennsylvania one [the Pennsylvania Synod's hymnal], or even the Common one [the General Council's hymnal, *das Gemeinſchaftliche*]?

How seriously impure hymnals are to be taken is taught by the following incident:

In the year 1669 a dispute arose in Küstrin over Lobwasser's Gereinigte Psalmen [Purified Psalms]. Lobwasser is, as is well known, a Lutheran in name only, who translated Marot's French psalms into German. These do not, to be sure, contain gross errors, but especially in the prophetic psalms the Calvinist interpretation shows. They were therefore also much used among the Reformed. When the so-called "Great Elector" was ruling in Brandenburg, the Reformed spread very widely, while the schools remained for the most part Lutheran. Then in Küstrin, at funerals of distinguished Reformed persons or on other festive occasions, the Lutheran gymnasium pupils were to sing Lobwasser's psalms. Rector Grafunder refused to do this, could not be moved to it, and was finally deposed. The Wittenberg faculty answered the faithful confessor, on his inquiry, as follows:

"It is not a pure matter of indifference [*Mittelding*, adiaphoron] to approve by public singing such writings as are Calvinist and plainly Judaize, but an open ungodliness." (Unschuldige Nachrichten, volume of 1747, p. 91.)

The Leipzig theological faculty gave him the following counsel: "Tell the councilmen that you are devoted to the genuine Lutheran religion and therefore cannot require your pupils to prefer Lobwasser to Luther and, through the French melodies, to incline the ears of the Reformed to