# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 06 01_S111
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

while lending does take it back if it comes, and yet risks that it might turn out to be a gift. For whoever lends in such a way that he wants to take back something better or more, that is open and condemned usury; since even those do not yet act in a Christian manner who lend in such a way that they demand or hope to get the same amount back again, and do not freely risk whether it comes back or not. — Now lending would be a fine thing if it happened among Christians; there each one would gladly give back what he had borrowed, and would gladly do without it, if the other could not give it back. For Christians are brothers, and one does not abandon the other; so too, none is so lazy and shameless that he would, without working, rely on another's goods and labor and live in idleness off another's possessions. But where people are not Christians, there worldly order should compel him to pay back what he has borrowed; if it does not compel him, and he is negligent, then the Christian should suffer such robbery, as Paul says, 1 Cor. 6:7: Why do you not rather suffer wrong? But let the non-Christian be reminded, dunned, and dealt with as he pleases; it does not matter concerning him, since he is a non-Christian and pays no heed to Christ's teaching. You also still have this small comfort, that you are obligated to lend only out of what is surplus to you, and what you can spare from your own need — as Christ says of alms, Luke 11:41: What is surplus to you, give as alms, and then all is clean to you. Now if so much were to be borrowed from you that, were it not given back, you yourself would have to perish, and your own need could not spare it, then you are not obligated to lend: for you are above all and first of all obligated to provide for the needs of your wife and child and household, and must not deprive them of what is rightfully due them from you. Therefore this is the best rule: where lending would become too great a burden for you, act rather as though you were giving something outright for nothing, or lend only so much as you would be willing to give, risking that it might have to be lost. For John the Baptist does not say: Whoever has one coat, let him give it away; but rather: Whoever has two coats, let him give one to him who has none, and whoever has food, let him do likewise. Luke 3:11. p. 1104—7.

The Servants' Devil.

Magister Peter Glaser, preacher at Dresden, wrote in the seventeenth century a tract by the name of "The Servants' Devil." "Not one," Dr. Schuppius exclaimed in response, "not one — there are seven devils that nowadays rule and lead astray manservants and maidservants."

"The first devil, he says, pictures for common folk the sweetness and charm of idleness and freedom. He gives them the notion that it is a delightful thing for someone to sit at home and fold his hands in his lap; that he may go to sleep whenever he pleases. He paints for them the glory of being subject to no one,

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of being free to go wherever he wishes. This is why many a maidservant will not give her mistress a kind word, but instead grows proud and haughty, like Hagar. And if her mistress wants to say much to her, she simply leaves, rents a little room of her own, becomes a laundress or a seamstress, and from a seamstress — a wet nurse."

"Now when the authorities or the parents resist the first devil and compel their subjects and children to go into service, then the second devil comes and persuades them that they should serve not godly and God-fearing masters, but rather godless ones — [illegible] "Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence do you come" — for with the godless they get more wages, more tips, better food and drink; there feasts are always held, there is good company of men and women, everything there is merry, there they dance, there they sing, there they leap about, there they go driving, there they may do and say what they please. But with the godly it is much too quiet; there one must keep restrained in word and deed, there one must always stay home toward Sunday, there one may not go to any merry company, there one must recite what one has retained from the sermon; in short, it is a truly monkish and nunnish life there."

"Now when manservants and maidservants also resolve to serve godly masters, then the third devil comes and turns this service against their liking. The devil then sends, say, an old woman, and has her say: 'What do you mean to do there? I know a better position for you.' Thereupon the servants are moved to cancel their promised service again, send back to the masters and mistresses the money they had taken in advance, move off to other places, or pretend to be sick and stay home for a while, until, out of pressing need, the masters or mistresses are forced to hire other servants — whereupon they then come forward again, fresh and healthy."

"When manservants and maidservants have offered their services and see that they do not have a better situation than before, that they do not have as good days as they had imagined, but that the masters and mistresses, just as much as the previous ones, expect that one should work for one's wages, then the fourth devil comes and persuades them to run away, or to conduct themselves in such a way that the master and mistress themselves are forced to give them their discharge. When work is most urgently needed, and the master and mistress can least of all do without their servants, then they are at their most willful, doing and leaving undone whatever they please. And when the master will not put up with it, but speaks a word about it, they promptly set his chair outside the door for him and say: 'Give me my wages!'"

"But if the servants also resolve to hold out their term of service, then the fifth devil comes and moves them not to perform their service as they are bound to, the devil rules them so that they often give their masters and mistresses no kind word; if one asks them something, they answer with snarling, growling, scornful, snappish words, often even in the presence of honest people and guests, and are ashamed neither before God nor before the world. If one rebukes their bad conduct, they bark back and insist on having the last word. Many a worthless wretch is so malicious that, if she cannot cool her temper any other way, she cools it on the children, secretly shoving and striking them. St. Paul says: 'You servants, be subject to your masters, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the difficult.' When Hagar was disciplined by her mistress Sarah, the angel of the LORD said to her: "...and where are you going?" She said: "I have fled from my mistress Sarah." And the angel of the LORD said to her: Return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand! But this is not heeded by whoever is possessed by the fifth devil."

"Then comes the sixth, and persuades the servants that, once they have served a year, they should move further on; and finally the seventh, which moves the servants, once they have taken their leave from their masters, to tell the worst about them and their children, so that it may have the appearance that they did not leave them without cause."

But to drive out these devils without sorcery lies mostly within the power of the housewife. The wise Greeks had a proverb, which the highly learned Roman Cicero cites in his epistles, and which in the German tongue means as much as: "As the mistress, so also the maidservants." — "Just as," says a church father, "the swallows announce the spring and the blossom announces the fruit, so too one can judge the mistress's ways from her maidservants." The old Germans sang:

"The weather is known by the wind,
The father is known by the child,
The household is known by its servants."

Take note of this, you housewives:
"Do not rely too much on manservant and maid.
The mistress herself must be the maid,
If she would keep good order in the house."

—.—

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matt. 7:7.

Luther expounds this saying as follows:

First, Christ wills that we should ask, when we are under trial.

But God often hides himself away somewhere, and will not listen; indeed, he will not let himself be found; so one must then seek him, that is, persist in prayer.

When one then seeks him, he shuts himself up in a little chamber; if one then wants to get in to him, one must knock. When one has knocked once or twice, he holds off hearing for a little while yet. Finally, when one makes too much of the knocking, he opens up and says: What is it you want, then? — Lord, I want to have this or that. — Then he says: Well then, have it. — Thus one must wake him up.