# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1861_S286
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

286 Ecclesiastical-Contemporary Notes.

become. Then I also tried, by means of a personal visit to a ministerial councillor who handles ecclesiastical matters, to see whether I could at least prevent my removal from here, but found that it was impossible for me to make him understand the necessity of our withdrawal and of a separate position for the Lutheran Church. — Add to that the cares that a congregation always brings, the scorn and contempt of many who otherwise showed me honor, against which my heart is unfortunately not yet insensible enough, and above all the unexpected attack of the Reverend Pastor ........, who at the very least should first have asked me whether things really stood as he wrote them to the world, to my great grief, alone as I am, and to the triumph of our adversaries, who like nothing better than to draw strength, on this point, for remaining in the Union — add to that further the faint-hearted heart, so easily condemned by Satan — so you will understand how I write to you that I am often inwardly too like a spent, hunted animal. Indeed I have already come — I confess it to you — to wishing: Oh, that I were but dead, and blessed! But the comfort which you offer, to my great refreshment, in your last Kirchenblatt — which has also become mine through the Holy Spirit — namely that it is precisely a sign and sure testimony of the Lord that one belongs to him, and is hated by Satan, when he denies one life, has set me upright again — and even though I am indeed a truly wicked sinner, I know well that it is not my sins that condemn me, but unbelief. Pray then very earnestly for me, the least of your brothers, and for his little flock, which the Lord has, even in this evil time, already increased a little again."

Baden. From there it is written to the Freimund of June 27: We Lutherans did not yet know whether we were regarded by the state as a church or as an ecclesiastical association; hitherto we were regarded as an ecclesiastical association; but our Lutheran Church may indeed not let itself be regarded and treated as a mere association! — Therefore we recently made petitions to the state authorities and asked, on the basis of the more recent legislation, repeatedly for ecclesiastical recognition and ecclesiastical corporate rights. Thereupon the following decision has just appeared: "The Ministry of State must refer the Lutherans to the laws concerning ecclesiastical affairs published in the Government Gazette No. 51 of October 16, 1860. According to these, their union does not have the character of a public church established in law; as an ecclesiastical association, however, they need no recognition."

In that law, namely, the Evangelical-Protestant-United and the Roman Catholic churches are recognized as the only ecclesiastical corporations.

From the Territorial Church of Weimar. From there it is written to the Freimund of July 4: The thoroughly confessionally faithful liturgy that appeared in the middle of the past century had for many years no longer been obtainable in the book trade, and when the old book became unusable, the clergy were permitted to choose a newer liturgy, and this choice often turned out badly enough. To curb this arbitrariness, the old liturgy was to be reissued, and this occasion was used by the highest ecclesiastical authority of the land to enlarge the new edition and alter it in part, and all ecclesiastical acts are to conform strictly to the liturgy as soon as the book has appeared in full. This dam against all arbitrariness is in and of itself very salutary. Likewise the principles published by the ecclesiastical authority, according to which the new edition is to be prepared, are to be approved in high degree. The Ernestine order of worship, long dear to the evangelical people of these lands, is to be retained, and the foundation of the confession legally in force is not to be abandoned. In this sense the first part already published, which contains the intonations, collects, and Sunday and festival prayers, has also been prepared, and we hold this part to be the best that has appeared in recent times in this field, and an ornament to the Weimar territorial church, as indeed even now several capable