# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 06 15_S117
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Know this, you who complain so: others confess the opposite, that they have already drawn much benefit from the meetings. Perhaps some of the fault that you remain unblessed lies with you yourself? Or perhaps you wrongly regard as a blessing only that which does not disturb your heart, but rather sustains and calls forth in it a sweet, quiet peace and pleasant feelings and sensations? But there you are mistaken. You can have blessing even while being moved very unpleasantly and filled with worry, sorrow, and affliction. And if merely by observing with your own eyes the shortcomings in the congregation you are moved to heartfelt intercession for it, that alone is already a great benefit. Moreover, the lack of benefit to yourself by no means lifts your obligation toward your neighbor. Here too it holds: "Obedience is better than sacrifice." If you find no benefit in going, as you see it, to tax collectors and sinners, then seek all the more to be of benefit to them.

Finally, some will also complain that the meetings occur too often, so that one must sacrifice too much time for them. To this I answer: if the meetings are better attended and more strictly kept in order, then there will also no longer be so much idle talk and quarreling, and in less time we will then discuss more and come more quickly to our purpose.

May gracious God, out of grace, let succeed my honest intention to contribute something toward our meetings becoming not only better attended but also more fruitful for the salvation of our congregation. To this end may he rule all our hearts, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our dear Savior. Amen.

(Submitted.)
Church News from Missouri.

In January of this year the candidate of theology, Mr. Carl Johann Hermann Fick of Hanover — educated at the University of Göttingen and supported by dear brothers in the faith in Germany for the purpose of his journey here — arrived safely here in St. Louis. Love for the forsaken Lutherans in North America, and the desire to help spread our church here, had driven him hither. A few weeks after his arrival in St. Louis, the German Evangelical Lutheran congregation at New Melle in St. Charles County, Missouri, issued a public call concerning a preacher to be summoned. Mr. Fick felt he ought to heed this call. He wrote to the congregation. He was invited to preach a trial sermon, which he delivered on Palm Sunday, and was thereupon unanimously elected and called by the congregation to be their preacher and pastor. He was to enter upon his office at Pentecost. During this time he attended the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other states, assembled at Chicago, Illinois, and was received by it as a member. In order to ordain him before the congregation, according to his own wish and that of the congregation, and to install him in the holy office, we — the Reverend Pastor Schieferdecker of Monroe County, Illinois, and I, the undersigned — were commissioned by the president of the aforesaid synod to travel there.

We rode out from St. Louis on the 27th of May and arrived the next day, favored by the finest weather, at New Melle, which lies 45 miles northwest of St. Louis, 12 miles inland from the left bank of the Missouri River, and 25 miles above St. Charles on the road to Marthasville. In a charming region we found a flourishing settlement, founded eight years ago by two young Hanoverians and populated chiefly by Lutherans from the two parishes of Melle and Buer in the Principality of Osnabrück. The congregation, at present consisting of 60 families, had purchased in the middle of its settlement a suitable tract of land with buildings and 40 acres of land for $300 as church property. A new two-story, finely built log house, 20 feet deep and 30 feet long, furnished with a wide porch, had been fitted out as church, school, and dwelling for the pastor. On the lower floor, which is divided into two rooms, one room serves as the school, the other as the pastor's dwelling. The upper floor, a spacious hall with a simple pulpit and pews, is set aside for the church services. Beside this house there are also two spacious outbuildings. Two acres, too, have been cleared and planted. Nearby is a fenced burial ground. It was a lovely sight to see how, on the Saturday, the members of the congregation were busy in unity, still working on various things for the common church property; some were digging a well, others were hauling stone, others were building on the house.

On Trinity Sunday the ordination service was held. The worship service began at 10 o'clock in the morning. Its first part pertained to the festival of the Holy Trinity. The Reverend Pastor Schieferdecker preached on the Gospel, treating the theme: "The faith of Christians is faith in the triune God." After the sermon several verses of an ordination hymn from the Osnabrück hymnal were sung, and thereupon I delivered an address on 2 Corinthians 2:17: "For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ," and on the basis of this text set forth: "The True Preacher of the Word of God." After this address the curriculum vitae of the new pastor was read aloud.

The ordination took place according to the rite of Löhe's Agenda, with commitment to all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; thereupon the Holy Supper was partaken of by the Reverend Pastors Fick and Schieferdecker, and the congregation was dismissed with the blessing.

It was a large gathering of at least 200 souls, who listened, sang, and prayed with great devotion and unmistakable emotion. Just during the ordination rite a thunderstorm broke out with loud thunder and much rain — a beautiful image of the Law and the Gospel, which, as we confidently hope, will also be powerfully preached by this newly ordained, zealous servant and warrior of Jesus Christ. May the Lord grant power to the thunder of his Law, and let there always follow a gentle rain of the Gospel, that the congregation may become fruitful in the fruits of the Spirit unto eternal life! May the faithful God bless and keep this congregation together with its pastor, that Zion may continue to receive joyful tidings from them!

Friedrich Bünger.

The Doctrine of the Early Church Concerning the Holy Supper.
A Contribution to Exposing Methodist Falsification of History.

Still the fanatical Methodists cannot rest from vilifying the pure doctrine of the Holy Supper. Quite recently they have again had a long piece of chatter printed concerning the correct interpretation of the words which our highly praised Lord and Savior Jesus Christ used at the institution of his Holy Sacrament. We do not feel compelled to answer this with even a single word. Every reasonable person sees, without needing anyone else's proof, that it is nothing but empty chatter, by which the poor Methodists wish to shroud in fog those Lutherans held captive by them who still have a conscience regarding the word of the almighty and truthful Son of God, so that they may no longer see it. In this they will not succeed. The word of Jesus Christ has a divine power to bind consciences and to disperse all the fog with which one seeks to cover it.

In the "Apologist" of the 28th of last month, however, a Methodist writes something which we cannot leave entirely unanswered, since it contains a historical falsification, and not everyone is in a position to check whether it is a falsification or not. A Methodist writes there, namely:

"The early Christian churches did indeed teach Christ's spiritual presence, but never his bodily presence. . . . Even Luther, in the year 1529, at his disputation with Zwingli held at Marburg, could not name a single church father of the first centuries who was favorable to his view of the Holy Supper, whereas his opponents had Holy Scripture, as well as the most esteemed of the fathers, on their side."

That the Methodists know neither what the early church taught concerning the Holy Supper, nor what Luther and his companions said and did at the Marburg Colloquy, is self-evident, and no one will hold that against them, since it