# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1861_S215
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The German Lutherans in America, etc. 215

affairs — since He would not even by a good admonition move the unjust
brother who withheld the inheritance to an equitable division, and by His
whole conduct made it sufficiently plain that His kingdom is not of this
world — yet He had to let Himself be accused as a seducer of the people who
perverted them and had forbidden to give Caesar what was Caesar's. Peaceably
as the first Christians conducted themselves, they were nevertheless held by
the enemies of the Christian name to be rioters and rebels, and to this day
people seek, by renewing such an accusation without any historical ground or
probability, to cast suspicion upon their faith, which they sealed with their
blood. How shameful, then, would it be if a preacher were really to make
himself guilty of this reproach. There is therefore just cause for rejoicing
that our preachers are far from sustaining or increasing, by inciting men's
minds, the disturbances that have arisen in the political state, and they
therefore do quite rightly in preaching, as they have been taught, repentance
and conversion and faith in Christ and the following of Him to those who call
themselves by His name, and in giving neither the one party nor the other any
cause for increasing the bitterness. From what Mr. Kunze and Mr. Helmuth
write of themselves one may with good ground draw a conclusion as to the
conduct of the other united preachers, at least as far as concerns those
among them who were sent from Halle to Pennsylvania and are bound together
with one another in one spirit and disposition."

Mühlenberg the elder, in a letter of October 31, 1778, to Freylinghausen,
gives some notes which help us in some measure to a picture of the conditions
in which the Lutheran congregations then found themselves. We select from it
the following:

"1) God's gracious providence so ordered it that Pastor Kunze remained in the
capital city of Philadelphia when it was taken by the English. In every
respect no one would have been better suited for it, and in a letter he
afterward assures us that God graciously stood by him and his family amid
these warlike scenes, and also gave him strength to perform his work. One
preacher was sufficient, because a great part of the congregation had gone
into the country, the great Zion Church had been taken over as a military
hospital, while St. Michael's Church was used as a garrison church, and on
Sundays only half of it was allowed to our congregation. In the hope that
both churches might be free, and the way to the branch congregation at
Barren Hill open, and the seminary also remain undisturbed, Pastor Kunze kept
on hand the licensed deacon and preceptor of the seminary, Mr. Schröter. But
when both of these fell away, the deacon could be of no great further service
to him.

2) For my son, Heinrich Mühlenberg, Jr., it was not advisable to remain in
the city during this period. He betook himself with his family first to us at
Providence, and when the danger spread