# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 10 13_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

to convey to us in due time the true interpretation of it; and, should it mean something evil, to avert it."

Duke Frederick, the Elector, said: "May the faithful God do this; only I cannot forget the dream. I do indeed have my own thoughts and interpretation of it, but for the time being I shall keep those to myself alone. Still, I will write it down. Time will perhaps show later whether I have rightly hit upon it, and we shall speak further with one another about it these coming days."

Of the Benefit which Heretics Bring to the Church.

On this Luther writes:

Although it seems as though the sectarian spirits do the Church much harm, they nevertheless only give occasion for the Word to be explained among us daily more purely and more richly; as Augustine says in the eighth book of his Confessions: when the errors of heretics are refuted, the understanding of the Church and of Holy Scripture is only further clarified thereby. For if we were not thus awakened and driven to examine and exercise our treasures, we would grow lazy and sluggish, and perish in idleness. So what else can our eternal enemy, Satan, accomplish with his relentless assaults than that we search the Word more diligently, and that we learn to pray, trust, and hope? It is said, and it is a proverb: hunger is a good cook. Therefore the afflictions of Christians are the health and welfare of both themselves and the Church; the cross and oppression are an exaltation and a triumph of the Church. Therefore, let the enemies of the Church do what they will, it is certain that the more we are oppressed, the more we rise up; for Christ is our leader and our head, who truly yields to no evil; for he has an unspeakable power by which he raises up the fallen, makes the dead alive, and makes the oppressed victorious and triumphant. For since he is God, this is properly his office: to make everything out of nothing, and to make nothing out of that which is. (See the exposition of Psalm 122:3.)

The same writes elsewhere:

No one should be surprised or alarmed to see sectarian spirits and heretics arising among Christians and raging so dreadfully against the truth. All of it must in the end work for our good, and serve more than one purpose. First, that we are thereby exercised to handle and hold fast to the Word of God all the more diligently, and thereby become ever more certain of the truth. For if such factions did not exist, by which the devil so rouses us, we would grow too lazy, would sleep and snore ourselves to death, and would let both faith and the Word grow dim and rust away among us, until everything were utterly ruined. But now such factions are our whetstone and polisher, which sharpen and hone our faith and doctrine until they shine smooth and pure like a mirror; through them we also learn to know the devil and his devices, and become ready and skilled to fight against him — all of which would be lost if we had peace from these factions. Secondly, the Word itself is thereby brought to light before the world all the more clearly and brightly, so that many come to know the truth through such conflict, or, if already within it, are strengthened, who would otherwise never have come to it; for the Word of God is a busy, restless thing, and therefore God gives it work to do, and lets both the devil and the world hang upon it and harry it, so that his power and goodness may be made manifest and lies put to shame. And if some are thereby led astray, that too is just, and is fitted as punishment and vengeance upon the godless, the proud despisers and ungrateful people who persecute, slander, or despise our doctrine. For where devout, simple hearts are led astray along with them, there is hope that they may yet come back to the right way. But the proud and the clever shall be hardened therein, and shall thus receive within themselves the wages of their ingratitude and their own haughty [illegible]. (See Luther's Works, Halle edition, XIV, 277ff.)

The Bishop Martin.

(A Children's Legend.)

In fourteen hundred eighty-three,
counted from when our Savior was born,
in the years reckoned by Christendom,
Doctor Martin came into the world;
Master Martin Luther, greatly learned,
the like of whom was never found!
At Eisleben, where fine miners
go down into deep shafts
and bring noble ore up to the light of day
with their diligent hammer-blows,
God in his wisdom so arranged it
that he should behold the light of the world.
For his mother God granted him
Dame Margarethe, a woman of honor;
his father, however, was Master Johann,
an honest, old, and pious miner,
who, strictly, after the custom of the old ways,
held him to church and to school.
The name Martin, which he bears,
was given him by a saint's day,
for it was on St. Martin's Day itself
that the little child lay in the baptismal font.
Now you ask: who was St. Martin?
The tale is old and wondrous:
a pious and honorable horseman,
and besides that a bishop — hear it now!

When Julian in the West
still resisted the Kingdom of the Lord,
this happened to a horseman from Pannonia
named Martin.
He once came riding, in the midst of storm and snow,
into a certain place.
There a poor man at once
begged him for a small gift.
The man was wretched, naked and bare;
the wind blew straight upon his bare skin.
Sir Martin would gladly, for his very life,
have given him his jerkin, coat, and doublet.
But you well know that a soldier
has very little to give away.
Yet he reined in upon his tall horse,
on which the rain came pouring down,
and said: "The man is naked and bare;
it need not, after all, be money —
I will nonetheless lend him something."
Then, seizing his sword in his fist,
he cut from his cloak
nearly half of one of its corners,
which he gave to the poor man.
The poor man took the piece at once,
and wished, in return, the kingdom of heaven
upon the good and pious horseman,
who did not dwell long upon it.

After he had spoken his thanks,
the man rode on further
to the door of a poor widow,
and took his lodging there,
took a little food and drink —
it will not have been much.
After he had thus drunk and eaten,
and had not forgotten his prayer,
he lay down upon the straw;
whether it was one night or two,
the chronicle does not record;
so I too will leave it undetermined.
Suddenly it happens in the night
that he is awakened by a radiance,
which forces his eyes open.
There stands a man at his feet;
his head bears a crown of thorns:
it is he! it is he, the Son of Man!
With a thousand angels attending him,
our Lord suddenly appears
in all his glory;
and clothed in the very cloak
which Martin of Pannonia,
who had never expected any such thing,
had given that day to the poor beggar,
is our Savior arrayed.

And thus the Lord says to Peter:
"Do you not see the new cloak
that I am wearing here upon my shoulders?"
When the apostle asks further
who, then, had given him the cloak,
with his eyes fixed upon Martin,
the Son of Man continues,
in a gentle, heavenly voice:
"This Martin here, it is he
who gave me this cloak.
Take heart, arise, my servant,
whom I have chosen; you are righteous!
Until now you have been a blind heathen.
Put your sword back into its sheath!
A soldier of God on earth
shall my devout Martin become as bishop."
When the Lord had spoken this word,
the cock crows, morning dawns;
an angel kisses the hem of the cloak,
and Martin awakes from his dream;
he reflects, knocks at a monastery door,
and, faithful to Christ's words, becomes,
out of a wild horseman,
a great and devout bishop.

Now, since I have told you this —
what a devout champion of love
had to lift Luther from the font
and give him the name Martin —
I hope it will no longer surprise you
what Doctor Martin did,
who learned both to ride courageously
and to fight bravely for the Church,
from that holy horseman
who at his baptism bestowed on him,
together with his devout name,
that he too must be set aflame with love:
so that Luther, good and great,
was ready at every hour
to give, not merely a piece of his coat
and the skirt of his rain-cloak,
but joyfully his very body and life
for his brethren.
Of such noble readiness
the city of Worms is for us an eternal witness.
Praised for this be Jesus Christ!

Milwaukee. — We have just learned that Pastor Keyl arrived safely with his family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Territory, on the 7th of this month, and entered upon his office at the Lutheran congregation there on the 19th Sunday after Trinity. His present address is therefore: Rev. G. W. Keyl, Milwaukee, Wis. Terr.

After the reminder printed on the last page, addressed to the "Katholische Kirchenzeitung" and the "Lutherische Kirchenbote," had already gone to press, we have at last received another issue from both papers again. We can only be glad that the editors themselves have come to remember what we felt obliged to remind them of.