# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1860_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

124 Church and Contemporary History.

beneficence of the Gospel befall other peoples too, even Hamitic ones,
in a similar way as it has the Germanic peoples, and thus to modify
the curse which, however, has lain upon them not first since Babel,
but since Noah. That is a mystery, the riches of divine grace are
"unsearchable." Are we to indulge in no illusions, as the author
rightly wishes, in the one direction — the direction of the successes
to be expected in the heathen mission (although the toning-down of
missionary enthusiasm could fittingly be left to the devil, to the
world, and to our own flesh) — then we may not do so in the other
direction either. But a strong tendency toward this lies in the
progress of prophetic understanding here assumed, and if the danger of
such illusion in this age evidently comes from the irritability,
weakness, and impatience that govern it, then one ought to be doubly
cautious against such new discoveries in the field of scriptural
understanding, agreeably accommodating to the character of the age as
they are. Otherwise one illusion might simply take the place of
another. To this category, unfortunately, we must reckon whole
sections of the work before us, without going into it in particular.
We wish only to single out, by way of example, that Dr. Fabri holds,
on Rev. John 16, "that the great earthquake once again alters the
shape of the earth, the inland seas and high mountains disappear, the
islands flee" — that is, reunite again with the mainland — "and
restore the continents separated since Peleg" (p. 27); for that should
suffice to afford a glimpse into the progress of prophetic scriptural
understanding praised here. That this certainly does not serve the
good intention of Herr Dr. Fabri to speak toward peace and toward an
understanding between the various parties, but rather only increases
confusion, we regret just as much as we understand and excuse the
side-glances which, from such a standpoint, are cast upon the
ecclesiastical party, chiefly the Lutheran one. True sobriety and
sober circumspection are indeed a rare phenomenon nowadays; and
instead of gathering ourselves, in earnest reflection and chaste
modesty, around what we have and what belongs to us, we scatter
ourselves in the wandering of various favorite inclinations. Has it
not happened to us — and with this we close — that not long ago a
theologian otherwise strongly churchly deduced a priori, with strained
systematics and in all earnestness, that the concept and belief in the
Millennium — which the author too shares — is the actual dot over the
"i" of the whole of present-day theology, its necessarily required
conclusion?

Church and Contemporary History.

I. America.
From the February number of the "Kirkelig Maanedstidende" we see
that, at the last synod of the Norwegian-evangelical-Lutheran Church in
October of last year, attention was also drawn, on the part of the
president in his report, to the adoption of the entire sym-