# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1861_S281
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

For the Basket of Fragments. — Everything Has Its Limits. 281

sufficient number of subscribers shall have come forward. A list of these will be appended to the first volume, and each individual copy will be furnished, on the leaf preceding the title, with the name of the purchaser. The invitation states: "Given the necessity, recognized nearly everywhere in our day, of replacing with better ones the church hymnals that arose during the last third of the past century, the work here in question is not merely an indispensable aid, but — unless unscholarliness and unchurchliness should once again join forces to corrupt evangelical church song — must form the exclusive foundation of any undertaking of this kind." There is no doubt that only excellent work is to be expected from a Wackernagel.

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(Submitted by P. R.)
For the Basket of Fragments.

Of the pearls of wisdom Luther has always judged rightly. At most, nowadays, since there is unfortunately not so much for us to do, one is more likely to get around to contemplating the string on which God has strung them, than was that much-beset hero of Israel, who in the midst of the tumult of battle often perceived nothing further than what the cloud of dust, in which he was wrapped, let flash through. — Would that the "progress" of our age would always content itself with contemplating, in the light, the string of pearls that God himself has spun; but how often one takes pleasure instead in stringing the corals together on threads twisted by human hands, to suit one's own taste, so that over it the whole jewelry of the fair Shulamite sometimes rolls into the sand!

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Everything Has Its Limits.

Clever people, precisely when they pass judgment on the kingdom of God, are simply not in their element. What is one to expect of them there? They could remain clever people, if only they did not want to measure themselves against the dear God! — There they now stand before the sea of revelation. They cannot and will not wonder. At last they spy, just beneath the surface of the clear mirror, their own countenance. "Impossible," they now say — "the sea cannot be as deep as the sailors who sail upon it claim. We need only think it worth the trouble to take off our shoes, and we would soon make discoveries about the world that would please no pastor."

Thanks for your generosity, you clever people!

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