# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 08 03_S139
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...tuitu tantam, quae ex concordia sperabatur, utilitatem rejecisse" — that is, in translation: "Finally, an 'unbending and imperious disposition' cannot be charged against Luther without calumny, unless it be proven that it was not for the sake of conscience and truth, but only for the sake of his own opinion and authority, that he rejected so great an advantage as was hoped for from the union."

We now ask every reader who still cares about truth: who, after this, can believe Mr. d'Aubigné in even a single point of his history, when one cannot look up for oneself the books from which he cites? For who has ever encountered a more brazen falsification than the one just uncovered? Consider: Mr. d'Aubigné names not only Seckendorf, he also names the work in which he claims that slanderous testimony against Luther was recorded; he even gives the page on which it is supposed to stand, cites the sentence with quotation marks, and, so that the reader will regard deception as impossible and checking the reference as superfluous, gives the supposed words in the language of the original, namely in Latin. What kind of authority is a man who seeks to deceive his readers with such arts of deception? In the eyes of truth-loving, indeed of merely reasonable, people, he can be no authority whatsoever. Let Mr. Nast, then, continue trying to turn his own falsification into truth by means of Mr. d'Aubigné's falsifications; among people who have knowledge of history he will only make himself contemptible through this literary sleight of hand. We hereby declare to Mr. Nast: if he wishes to enter the lists on historical matters, it is not enough for him to order the first available book from Philadelphia and leaf through it a little; he must rather occupy himself with the study of the sources themselves — otherwise he may perhaps more than once have to leave the field of battle in disgrace along with his witnesses, as he presently must with his "fortunately" discovered "pious and learned" d'Aubigné. Mr. Nast writes: "The Apologist hopes . . . to be able to acquaint Pastor Walther still better with the church fathers than he was acquainted with them in Leipzig." If Mr. Nast is here again placing his confidence in some fortunately discovered digest, in which the apparatus he needs has already been assembled, then we advise him not to be so quick to charge ahead, but rather to check the citations themselves first — otherwise he may perhaps be the only one who will not later laugh at his own boasting.

We cannot refrain from expressing here, in closing, our deepest regret that America in particular has been quite literally flooded with Mr. d'Aubigné's historical work. Given the great lack, precisely here, of thorough knowledge of history and of the means to learn it from its sources, this book cannot fail to achieve its purpose of spreading the crassest indifferentism and furthering a false union. The book is dangerous not only because the history is told in it in a dramatic-romantic form, most attractively, with French ease, but because the Reformed author also gives himself the appearance of great impartiality by presenting Luther, on the one hand, in his prominent stature as the hero of his history, while on the other hand he imperceptibly casts ever more shadow upon that dear man of God, and himself, as we have seen, does not shrink even from the most blatant falsifications of history, in order to trace Luther's faithful struggle for the purity of the Word against the Reformed falsifications back to the poisonous source of pride. How pitiful Luther appears, according to d'Aubigné's account, at Marburg! Like a willful child who, when he does not get his way, spitefully stamps his feet. The richly gifted author will one day alone have to answer for the harm that he has already done, and will yet do, through his dishonest portrayal of one of the greatest works of God. Let whoever seeks truth be warned.

(Submitted.)

A Word on Church Melodies.

One frequently hears complaints in our time that spiritual singing in homes and families has diminished and become extremely rare. And it is, unfortunately, only too true that our time differs greatly in this respect from earlier ones. Whereas formerly, in most families, the head of the household would sing an earnest hymn with his own in the morning and in the evening, and the stillness of Sunday afternoons was pleasantly interrupted by spiritual singing that resounded from many a house — so that one was involuntarily reminded of the words, "God, one praises Thee in the stillness at Zion, and to Thee are vows paid" (Ps. 65:2) — now one seldom hears such praise of God any more in homes, and spiritual singing is almost entirely confined to public worship. What, then, might be the cause of this sad phenomenon? Various reasons might be given, namely that in the age of Rationalism our church hymns were robbed of their power and unction, and that with this the desire to sing them necessarily declined as well. But however little the correctness of this claim can be denied, the corruption of the hymn texts is not the sole main reason. Beside it stands another, equally important one. It has repeatedly and thoroughly been demonstrated of late by hymnological scholars that it is chiefly the corruption of the church melodies, too, that has brought about the disappearance of spiritual singing in homes and its decline in worship services.

Perhaps some reader may be of the opinion that spiritual melodies were formerly sung just as they are now. But a glance at the chorale collections of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries teaches that earlier church singing was thoroughly different from that of today. Nowadays one observes no distinction as to slower or faster delivery; formerly one held strictly to this distinction and sang hymns that expressed joy more quickly, and hymns that expressed pain and sorrow more slowly. Formerly one delighted in simple, grand tones and avoided, as far as possible, passing notes, superfluous ornaments, and flourishes; now one shuns the clear delineation of the individual intervals, sings no sixth, fifth, or fourth — indeed, often not even a third any more — without inserting one or two passing tones, and the flourishes and useless ornaments are so numerous that almost every congregation has its own particular set. Once, the spiritual melody moved alternately in whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes, and had not only common time but often also triple time, so that a variety in rhythm (meter) prevailed, and, as regards meter, the spiritual hymn was almost equal to the secular song; now one makes no distinction whatsoever as to meter, holds one tone as long as another, and uses common time almost throughout.

There can be no doubt that the earlier manner of singing deserves the preference. He who composes the melody for a hymn is, so to speak, the poet's other self, and the melody must necessarily arise out of the very content of the hymn, if it is not to blur its character or even contradict it. Could one, for example, sing the hymns "Now rejoice, dear Christians all," etc., and "Out of the depths I cry to Thee," etc., in one and the same manner and to one and the same melody? Would one not, in order to express the content of both hymns, have to sing the former in a cheerful manner and the latter in a plaintive one — the one slowly, the other briskly? The content of the hymn must thus make itself known not only through the key and melodic progression but also through a quick, moderate, or slow tempo of delivery. To this unity of melody with hymn, and to the perfect expression of its character, rhythm in particular contributes. Since individual words consist of longer and shorter syllables, longer and shorter notes in the melody are already thereby conditioned; and if, in human speech, every sentence has melody and rhythm, and in the reading aloud of a spiritual hymn the feeling of the reader expresses itself chiefly in the now longer, now shorter pronunciation of individual words and sentences, then it is clear that the same can and must occur also in the singing of a spiritual hymn, and it is hard to see how the character of the hymn is to be fully expressed through the melody, and how the singer's feeling