# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1858_S306
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

306     True and False Exclusivity.

all that glitters is gold, applies here too. The human heart is still the same as before, and the Word of God remains foolishness to it, as always. Many a one praises a strict sermon of repentance because others praise it; many a one goes to the mission hour because he sees others going; many a teacher teaches strictly according to Spener because he hopes to obtain a commendation or even a gratuity, and carries on his immoral life all the same; many a preacher proclaims the pure doctrine of the Gospel in mighty words, and is to be found in the beer-house 365 times a year, his heart full of malice, full of hatred and envy toward his neighbor. Many a one holds mission hours merely to keep up with the times, and passes by the unfortunate man, like that priest. In the ministers' conferences one no longer polemicizes over articles of faith long since acknowledged; instead one deliberates much about Christian church discipline, about individual pastoral care, and the like. The authorities issue among us one ordinance after another and impress the age-old ones upon us again and again. But how are they respected? I will cite only the observance of Sunday. Probably at no time has Sunday been so little heeded among us as now. Material interests cause the Third Commandment to be almost entirely forgotten. There are probably few workshops in our city where work does not go on even during the public worship service, hardly a factory that observes a full rest; in the counting-houses, even in the courtrooms, the pen is plied, and the pen that wrote the law is the first to sin against it. On high festival days last year, the telegraph wires were put up. On the Feast of the Annunciation, on Palm Sunday, and on the first day of Easter this year, people were extremely busy setting up our gas-lighting works.

True and False Exclusivity.

In the first chamber of the Saxon Diet, in the present year, Chamberlain von Erdmannsdorf spoke as follows, among other things, after complaints had been raised in the second chamber about the exclusivity of a certain party and even of the Ministry of Worship:

"Gentlemen! The word 'exclusive' has already become a fashionable catchword, and such catchwords have the privilege of being used without one's really knowing what they are supposed to mean; everyone reads into them whatever sense happens to suit him. If, then, one wishes to discuss whether these complaints are well founded or not, it will be necessary first to hold up against this concept the genuinely Lutheran question: 'What does this mean?' To exclude means to shut out; an exclusive tendency will accordingly be one that shuts something out, that excludes it. Already from this simple translation of the word it follows that there is a false exclusivity and a correct one. The only question is what one excludes, and how one