# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1858_S351
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Notices. 351

Church and Contemporary Notices.

I. America.

The Rev. Pastor J. Weinmann, as we learn with deep sorrow from the "Missionary," met his death in the sinking of the steamship Austria, on which he was returning from a visit to his aged mother living in Germany. A correspondence carried on with the departed has made him especially dear and precious to us. In the same catastrophe the congregation of the Rev. P. Brohm in New York also lost an especially dear and zealous member in Mr. Wieland, who will be remembered fondly by many from the meeting of the General Synod at Fort Wayne and the general conference at Pittsburg, in which he took an active part as a deputy.

The Eastern Pennsylvania Synod met, as we learn from the Missionary, on September 30th and the following days at Bloomsberg, Columbia Co., Pa. "The president," it states, "read his annual report, in which he gave attention to the financial changes, to the laying of the Atlantic cable, and especially to the unusual interest in the religious world — events which will always make the past year notable." It was resolved that the same person should not be eligible for the same office for two years in succession. This resolution was reached only after a lively discussion, in which the one party maintained that all the brethren of the synod had a claim (were competent) to become president, and that if the three-year system were retained, it would take 120 years before every member would have had the honor of presiding over this body. Had these gentlemen preached on the Gospel the Sunday before (Dom. XVII. p. Trin.), namely Luke 14:1–11, particularly verses 7–11, they would presumably have been ashamed of themselves.

The English Synod of Ohio and the neighboring states declares that the Constitution it earlier published in the "Standard" does not fully agree with the original; it must read there that all members confess the doctrine of the Word of God "as it is laid down in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism, and indeed in the sense and spirit of the other symbolical books." (Cf. L. u. W., December issue of last year, p. 381.) In the report of the ministerium of this synod we find the American rarity of a candidate admitted to the examination pro ministerio being rejected.

The administrative board of the so-called Mission Institute, whose establishment was chiefly promoted by Dr. Benj. Kurtz for the purpose of the more practical training of preachers, passed the following resolution among others on August 31: "Resolved, that we regard the two departments which make up the Mission Institute as separate and independent of all other schools of our Church, inasmuch as we are unwilling that they be viewed as belonging to any particular sect, or as especially promoting the interest of any theological or college institute of our Church, and thereby excluding similar institutions of other churches." (Luth. Church paper.) One sees from this that Dr. Kurtz and the administrative board are consistent General Synod men.

II. Abroad.

Löhe and Private Confession. In the correspondence bulletin of the Society for Home Missions in the spirit of the Lutheran Church there appear "Neuendettelsau Letters by W. Löhe," in which the writer rejects the charge made against him of having introduced Roman auricular confession into his congregation. In these letters it says: "It occurs to me, by the way, to copy out here for you a short passage from a dictation which I gave this year's confirmands, so that you may know quite precisely how I regard and practice private confession. Private confession, it states there, serves a variety of purposes: 1) Either one confesses privately simply because one wishes to receive the particular absolution; then it is sufficient to confess using a formula. 2) Or one confesses with the intention of bringing forward particularly oppressive sins and having them absolved; then Luther's Small Catechism teaches one how to fit the confession of one's particular sins into a general formula, if one does not wish to make use throughout of free speech. 3) Or one confesses in order to obtain counsel for the soul concerning particular sins, of whose forgiveness one has no doubt but against which one is continually tempted anew without being able to overcome them; then one will do best to make use of the confessional conversation. 4) Or one confesses in order to humble oneself; then one states whatever is humbling, whether much or little. 5) Or finally, one confesses in order to make oneself quite openly known to a confessor and thereby make the cure of souls easier for him; then confession becomes a kind of life-history, or what the Roman Catholics call general confession.

Of these various kinds of confessing, choose for yourself at any time the one you need; (!) the choice is your own responsibility. It is likewise entirely immaterial whether you confess in writing