# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1860_S159
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church News of the Times. 159

form, and instruct the deans accordingly when these ordinations are entrusted to them. If a clergyman preaches otherwise than the pure, unadulterated Word of God as the Evangelical Lutheran Church teaches it, he does so per nefas, that is, against command and wrongfully. And if the church authority does not stop the mouths of such blasphemers, it likewise neglects its office of discipline per nefas, that is, against duty and right. But just as one swallow does not make a summer, so also a whole troop of wolves that creep into the sheepfold does not for long turn the sheepfold into a wolves' den. As long as sheep and shepherds remain, so long the sheepfold remains a sheepfold. Wolves will always creep in again and again, just as Judas Iscariot and Ananias once crept in. And the Lord will drive out the wolves again too. Everything in its own time. We will not number the heads of the faithful shepherds in Hesse, as David once numbered his people. Nor will we number the sheep, but will rather say with Joab: may the Lord do to this people, as it is, a hundred times as much. And we wish to confess with praise and thanks that among us the Word of God is preached purely and unadulterated. The pastors have the duty to do so, and the congregation has the right to demand the pure milk of the Gospel.

I am far from praising, and the reader of the Freimund knows this, the Hessian conditions. But one must not say more evil of them than is true. So it is also not true that the Baden catechism must be used in all schools. Rather, the Lutheran catechism must be used in all schools. An order has recently gone out from the Grand Ducal Superior Consistory and from the Grand Ducal Superior School Board (the authority in charge of the schools) that the Lutheran catechism is to be learned by heart in all Lutheran schools, whereas the Baden one is not to be learned by heart. The pupils are merely to be made acquainted with its contents. The pastors are also to tell the teachers what is to be learned by heart from it. One sees that these ordinances stand on shaky ground on account of the Baden catechism. And so it is. The stiffly tedious Baden catechism stands on shaky ground. People are as generally tired of it as the stomach is of an emetic. And it will not remain much longer either. In many places it has never been in use at all, for example in Höchst on the Nidder and elsewhere. In many places it has been removed again, entirely removed, for example in Wetterfeld and in many other places. In the whole county of Schlitz its staff is by now already broken. No believing pastor takes it up with the "Kluft" (about the same as "Klufe," a pin?) for instruction, and no one is expected to do so. In other Lutheran territorial churches too there are poor catechisms, and no one says that these congregations are not Lutheran. And among us the Baden catechism will soon be entirely worn out. Indeed one has recently already heard it said that Irmischer's catechism is to be introduced in its place.

But the Lutheran catechism stands firm among us, upon the feet of the divine Word and of the good old right. It sits firmly in the memory of the congregations, and fixes itself firmly in the hearts of the young, despite the rationalist Baden twaddle that is customarily driven along beside it.

We therefore still have the Word of God pure and unadulterated in the obligation of the church's servants and in the congregation. For our Lutheran catechism is pure and genuinely Lutheran. And with it we believe that the Lord Jesus Himself also dwells among us, and fights with us and for us. For throughout all Hesse the Lutheran youth confess frequently, even at the altar in catechism instruction, the following beautiful question:

"Do you believe that your Lord Jesus Christ is present here on earth with His dear Church, and also with you? — Answer: Yes, my dear Lord Christ, true God and man, one Lord over all, is according to His promise with me and with all His believers. He is my Lord and King, who, just as He has redeemed me, so also protects and shields me, and will at last receive me into His glorious kingdom after this life."

It is likewise not true that the Lutheran congregations must be called Evangelical. All the Lutheran congregations are to be called Lutheran, and are so called. When it was ordered some years ago that all headings of the authorities, in