# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1860_S129
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume VI.    May 1860.    No. 5.

How the Simple, and Especially the Sick,
Are to Be Instructed in Christianity.
By H. Friedrich Mecum (Myconius.)

(This little work of Luther's well-known friend has been recommended to us for publication in "Lehre und Wehre" by a highly esteemed friend who has himself used it with blessing for years, in the conviction that it would thereby be offered as a welcome gift to the brethren in office. We too believed we could only concur in his judgment. The conscientious preacher, mindful of the account he must one day give for the souls entrusted to him, often feels no little unease as to whether, in his pastoral conversations at confession-registrations and the communion of the sick, he has imparted the necessary matter to the simple fully, clearly, and with sufficient urgency. This little book contains the substance, clear and in vigorous brevity, that ought to be present to the pastor's mind on such official occasions. In many cases even a literal reading aloud might prove more fruitful than an unprepared address of one's own, as sometimes must be given. For here is a clear, fresh stream of living water, welling up into eternal life, which carries, as it were, the marrow of the spiritual life woven in God's firm promise into the heart of the attentive hearer. To make the gift, if possible, still more agreeable, we offer the reader in what follows a glimpse into the life of the extraordinary man who speaks in this little writing.

Myconius was born on December 26, 1491, at Lichtenfels in Franconia, of God-fearing parents. In his nineteenth year, while studying at Annaberg, he sought indulgence from Tetzel, and that as a poor man, freely for God's sake, as the pope had commanded. Tetzel refused it. The priests in his company offered the fluent Latin-speaking youth the necessary money, as being a young man of spirit and eloquence who was worthy of such a benefit above others. But Myconius desires the free forgiveness of sin from Him who, in the pope's name, has the power to grant it. So he returns to his lodging without indulgence, weeping. While in tears before his crucifix he calls upon God for the forgiveness of sin, he experiences a transformation of his whole