# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1861_S126
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

126 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

other places, and land and buildings have been offered free of charge and free of debt.

The "Olive Branch," edited by Dr. Harkey in Springfield, Illinois, has, as the Kirchenbote reports, ceased publication. The editor says in his last number that the paper has fulfilled its mission (?) and can therefore discontinue its appearance. He further says that during the 5 years of his editorship he had to sink $6—700 into it, not counting the labor he performed for the paper gratis.

State Interference. The Dutch Reformed church in Philadelphia, of which the Kirchenbote recently reported that the congregation had elected a preacher of Arminian sentiments, against whose installation the church council protested, has received the decision from Judge Allison that it is the duty of the civil authority to support the ecclesiastical authorities in maintaining their doctrines of faith. The congregation may therefore make no claim to the installation of a preacher who is not Reformed.

II. Abroad.

The "Sächsische Kirchen- und Schulblatt" has with the present volume received as its editor Pastor Lic. Meurer of Callenberg near Waldenburg in Saxony. Dr. Luthardt, the previous editor, takes his leave of the paper with, among others, the following words: "The ground on which this paper stands is the ground of our church as well — the confession. But it is not enough to conduct its doctrine and to confess it with words. Many truths that two decades ago were still unheard of or intolerable have now become familiar and give no more offense. What matters is that the truth of the confession be a personal and actual reality, and that the one who bears it be of a truly churchly character. Our age is one without character and washed out. Against the influence of its spirit every individual and every territorial church" (we add: every synod) "must also defend itself. And to contend against this, or to stand watch, belongs no less to the calling of this paper. One must show one's colors." The new editor says in his preface to the 1861 volume, among other things, the following about the churchly conditions of Saxony: "Just as little can we say that among the believing theologians of Saxony differences with regard to doctrine were pending; at least these have not been expressed or even formulated. Whether this is precisely to be counted a good fortune — on that opinions might be divided . . The question is not so much one of the content as of the assertion of the churchly confession; not of the credimus [we believe], more of the confitemur (we confess), most of all of the docemus (we teach); not of what is held valid among us, but of what profits among us." O happy Saxony, if that is really so — however great the deficiency may be even then!

Leipzig. The total number of matriculated students this semester is 874, namely 657 from within the country and 217 from abroad. 259 are studying theology.

Of the King of Prussia who died last, Ehlers writes: "We Lutherans in Prussia have especially to thank the Father in heaven that twenty years ago he gave our land a king who in the fear of God permitted us to build ourselves up in peace upon our confession of faith. By this our departed king set a beautiful pearl in his crown, one that shines over into eternity." The State Gazette reports that the deceased "drew his resignation from the Word of God richly bestowed upon him, and relied wholly and solely upon the merit of his Savior Jesus Christ for his future blessedness." If that is so, as we gladly believe, then the slanders that his enemies still send after him into eternity in wicked malice can do him no harm.

Does the like occur in Germany too? So we must ask when we read in a German journal: "Great excitement and unrest in churchly circles are aroused by the events in Quedlinburg (in the province of Saxony), where all the