# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1861_S285
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Ecclesiastical-Contemporary Notes. 285

Pastor L. O. Ehlers addresses the following to his readers in his Kirchenblatt of June 15: "When this issue of the Church Gazette had already been set at the printer's down to a small detail, I received a letter from the Upper Church Council of the 30th of last month, in which it informs me that it has transferred the editorship of the Kirchenblatt to the Reverend Consistorial Councillor Pastor Nagel of Breslau. I am far from feeling aggrieved at this step of the Upper Church Council; for it indeed has the power to take from me what I received from it; and if I place myself at the standpoint of the members of the U.C.C., who presently manage our ecclesiastical affairs, I find it entirely in order that they should no longer leave me the editorship of the paper, which, by resolution of the General Synod of 1848, is to be an official organ of the U.C.C., after I, for conscience's sake, had to declare that I could not admit communications from the U.C.C. in our present controversy without adding remarks of my own.

But as I know how to respect the conscience of the members of the U.C.C., which determines them to take the editorship of the Church Gazette from me, so I hope it will not be construed as a hostile step (which in truth it is not) if, instead of the Kirchenblatt, I publish another paper. What moves me to this is not a love of quarreling, but the desire to help ensure that in the present controversy the truth be recognized and peace thus return among us. For only he who contends for the sake of peace and the children of peace contends rightly; and whoever contends to gratify his own pleasure falls under the judgment of God. — The paper I am to publish beginning July 1 of this year will bear the title 'Church Gazette for Lutheran Congregations,' and will appear at the same intervals as the Kirchenblatt, in the same extent (18 sheets annually), and at the same price (6 Sgr. 3 Pf. per half-year), obtained in the same way. — It will also, God helping, be written in the same spirit, namely not for the sake of hatred and strife, but for edification in the truth. Where it contends for the truth, errors shall be exposed, without insult, hostility, or injury to persons.

How long I shall publish this paper stands, like all our doing, wholly and entirely in God's hands. I do not, however, intend to publish it any longer than, in my own judgment and that of others, the state of our church makes desirable. And would to God peace might soon come, so that I might gladly lay down my staff.

Since I must now take leave of my dear readers as readers of the Kirchenblatt (and I well know that many of them will not be readers of my new paper), I thank God that he has strengthened me in my weakness to publish the paper for 25 half-years. I know that I, as in every activity I have practiced and still practice, so also as editor of the Kirchenblatt, stand in need of much forgiveness, because I have sinned greatly in every respect. May he not enter into judgment with me! — But I also thank the readers who have borne with much weakness patiently, and I wish, in the Lord, that editor and readers may see each other again in heavenly clarity, where all weakness about and around us will have been put away from us. Amen."

Pastor Hofmann of Gedern in Hesse, who, as we reported earlier, has withdrawn from the Hessian territorial church, writes to Ehlers, as we read in the latter's Kirchenblatt of June 15: "I am, like a hunted animal, weary in body and often too — I confess it to you — weary within — and yet up to now it means almost nothing compared to what still seems to be coming, and that shortly. First I had to leave my previous dwelling, and we had to arrange, with difficulty, to settle in with a member of the congregation, in which I myself had to lend a hand for a long time. Then the judicial persecutions began, with a summons before the district office, which informed me that I would soon be torn away from my congregation and banished to my home village, some 5—6 hours distant. Then came a summons before the district court for the following day, the 28th of May, where I would probably, on account of 'unauthorized performance of spiritual functions,' be sentenced to a fine