# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1860_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Affairs. 31

heirs in the ruling, that this provision was too uncertain, since the Catholic Church
can grant no certainty that there really are such souls in purgatory to whom masses
and prayers could be of use. The money was accordingly awarded to the actual
heirs.

The united hymnal. Pastor Brobst writes in his "Lutheran
Journal" of November 19 of last year: "Since the Reformed will soon be introducing
their new German hymnal into the union churches in eastern Pennsylvania, now
would be a good time to introduce the Lutheran hymnal also, where it has not yet
been introduced. The union hymnal has been given up by the synods of both
churches." So the Reformed are, after all, to get ahead of the Lutherans in sweeping
out the unionistic leaven!

From the Lutheran ministerium of the State of New York and other states, several
ministers, as they publicly declare, have withdrawn "for good reasons," and have
entrusted to Pastors H. H. Ebsen in Albany and A. H. M. Held in New York "the
preparatory work for founding a new, purely German ev.-Lutheran synod," and these
two now publicly call for members to join, "as the board of this provisionally
constituted synodical association of June 18 of last year."

The United Brethren in Christ (called Otterbeinians after their founder Otterbein,
d. 1813) now form a fellowship of 82,013 members under 1,278 preachers, as their
organ, the "Fröhliche Botschafter" [Joyful Messenger] of Dayton, reports.

General-synodism. In the Lutheran Observer a certain Francis Springer reports on
the church conditions of Iowa. Among other things he says of the city of Des
Moines: "Here there is a German Lutheran congregation under the pastoral care of
the Reverend J. A. List, a member of a certain European fraternity which has Prof.
(!) Löhe of Bavaria as its head. It is said that genuflections and altar antics form a
striking part of the pastor's religious performances. It is remarkable how quickly
even Christians learn to walk by sight rather than by faith. But it may be that their
Christianity is wrapped up a little in the heathenism still clung to by the papists."
In this writer malice and ignorance seem to be vying for first place.

The Ohio Synod, at its last extra session in November of last year, placed the
Lutheran Standard into the hands of Prof. Worley, who is now to devote the greater
part of his time to the paper and seek his livelihood from its proceeds. The synod
further resolved that, since the German papers introduced among our people, which
differ widely from one another in their ecclesiastical standpoint, have a tendency to
divide our strength, the publication of a German church paper under the auspices of
the synod should also be begun. A committee, consisting of Professors Lehmann
and Schmid and Pastor Schultze, was appointed to take the necessary steps in the
matter. The question of church and ministry was also discussed, but laid on the
table until next year before any conclusion was reached.

The ministerium of the State of N.-Y. In the last issue of last year we
communicated some resolutions of this synod which betrayed anything but a
Lutheran spirit. As we learn from the issue of the "Lutheran Herald" of December
1, several members have publicly protested against those resolutions, namely the
Reverend Pastors Weisel, Ebert, Rägener, Zapf, Hofmann, and Siebke.*) — But
where is Dr. St. hiding?!

Pastor G. A. Schieferdecker has, according to Brobst's Lutheran Journal, become a
member of the Iowa Synod.

Unitarian blossom. When, on December 2 of last year, John Brown, the head of the
ringleaders in the Harpers Ferry uprising begun for the abolition of slavery, was
executed near Charleston, Virginia, a Unitarian preacher in Vermont blasphemously
declared from the pulpit that Brown was a martyr who deserved to be called a
second Jesus. Another (Wheelock, in New Hampshire) blasphemed thus: "The
gallows from which he ascends into heaven will be in our politics what the cross is
in our religion — the symbol of the most sublime self-sacrifice, and from his
sacrificial blood the temporal redemption of four million will yet proceed." This is
reported by the Reformed Church Gazette.

The English ev.-Lutheran Synod of Virginia, assembled in October of last
year, resolved, among other things, to require of its ministers that they accept no
call to an office unless the salary is definitely fixed and the church council is made
responsible for its payment. Judging by the complaints raised, the members of the
said synod may well have had good reason to adopt a similar resolution; yet that
form appears to us somewhat too radical, and not applicable to all cases, nor
altogether reconcilable with the conscience of an evangelical minister.

General synod. Some time ago Dr. Stohlmann in New York

*) Siebke, in the next following issue of the "Lutheran Herald," withdrew his protest again.