# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1860_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Melanchthon's Day of Death. 23

not the congregation, and were it even a congregation of saints. It would
not itself be this without the spiritual office, in which lies the power of
the Law and the Gospel, the power of the sacraments, the power to bind
and to loose. Everything depends on the divine, unquestionable call, and
on nothing else, when it comes to advising the Church and shaping its
structure, its order and its administration. To the spiritual office, to
which all the inner goods of the Church are entrusted for keeping and
administration, it alone therefore also belongs to take charge of the
Church's outward goods, to wield the government of the Church, and of
its own accord to reshape the congregation anew. If this belongs to it,
then it also has the duty to do it. And he who has to proclaim the Word
of the Lord, to distribute the body of the Lord, and in the Lord's name to
retain and to forgive sin — the bearer of the spiritual office, the
clergyman — . . will not falter or waver even in presenting himself as the
cornerstone and center of the outward shaping of the Church. The rest
of us gather round him, and only then will he too hear us, the
congregation; but first we demand that he step into the breach and take
the burden of government upon his shoulders. . ."

Such are Herr Vilmar's views on the spiritual office and the future
of the Church.

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Melanchthon's Day of Death

Under this heading we find an article in Münkel's new Zeitblatt of
October 7 of last year. From it we extract the following:

Since Melanchthon departed this life to his Lord on April 19, 1560,
the Eisenach Conference has resolved to recommend to all the evangelical
church governments of Germany the observance of this day in the coming
year, so that Melanchthon may be granted what fell to Luther's lot in
1846. In view of this observance we seek to bring home to ourselves its
significance for the Church.

Melanchthon was called to the University of Wittenberg in 1518 as a
young man of twenty-one. His youthful age alone, and the significant
office entrusted to him, allow one to guess that he was regarded as a
rising light. Luther, too, recognized this very soon and thanked God for
the capable instrument that had been brought to him. M. possessed,
besides wide-ranging knowledge of languages and antiquity, fine gifts of
speech, a sharp understanding, and an open mind for everything that
stirred men's spirits in that day. In addition he worked quickly and
skillfully, and preserved his energy and freshness almost intact under
crushing burdens of labor. Up to that point he had still been merely a
spectator of Luther's reforming struggles. But from the time of his
arrival in Wittenberg he attached himself more closely to Luther. He
looked into the mighty work of the man, and