# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 01 25_S85
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Wake up: it is now high time!
Eternity is drawing near
To give you your reward!

The journeyman stopped, listened, and was moved. One of his fellow journeymen, who intended to travel that very morning and was a devout man, met him on the street and said: Brother! did you hear what the watchman sang? That verse was sung for you too. You are right, brother, the other answered; I did hear it, and it moved me. From now on, with God's help, I too will become a different, better man. From today I will give up my dissolute way of life and ask God for forgiveness. He will not cast me out! So he spoke, and he kept his word. Thus does the Lord know how to guide events in such a way that people are sometimes moved and seized in quite a special manner. You who read this — has not a verse that a congregation once sang to you, or some saying of the Bible, at times struck you in a very particular way and roused you from your sleep? Oh, thank the Lord for such awakening voices and heed them carefully: they will serve your peace! —

Matt. 18:35: "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother his trespasses."

In Antioch there lived a presbyter, Sapricius, and another Christian, Nicephorus, for a long time in close friendship. But once they fell out and became such enemies that they would not even greet one another on the street. Nicephorus was the first to search his own heart, and he sent messengers to the presbyter seeking reconciliation; and when these returned unheeded twice, he himself threw himself down at the feet of his former friend and begged: "Forgive me, for the Lord's sake, my father!" But the presbyter remained unmoved.

Not long afterward a persecution broke out. Sapricius, being a teacher of the Christians, was brought before the governor and made a glorious confession. Torture and torments were applied, but they only increased his steadfast courage, and he was condemned to the sword. With great joy Sapricius walked his way to death. Then, on the road to the execution, Nicephorus ran to meet him, fell down before him, and begged: "Witness of Christ, forgive me for having offended you!" The martyr passed by in silence. Once more the poor man renewed his plea in vain. But the executioners mocked him and said: "We have never seen such a fool; this man is on his way to be beheaded, and still you beg him for forgiveness!" They reached the place of execution. "Ah!" cried Nicephorus, "it is written: Ask, and it shall be given you!" But even this word of God itself, whose power he now needed so badly, made no impression on the unforgiving man. Just as Sapricius was about to kneel down to receive the death-stroke, he suddenly felt himself forsaken by God. "Stop!" he cried to the executioners, "I will do as the emperor commands; I will sacrifice to the gods!" Then Nicephorus called out to him: "Do not sin, my brother, do not fall away, do not deny Christ our Lord, do not forfeit the crown that will so soon be yours!" But Sapricius paid no heed to him, and the executioners triumphed. Then the other turned to them and said: "I believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom this man has just denied; so kill me instead!"

The crude men, astonished, brought the governor this remarkable news. Sapricius was led back, and Nicephorus was beheaded.

An actual proof that the hearing of God's Word is not in vain.

Between Copenhagen and the island of Saltholm — so relates Pastor Heiberg in his church-historical account "Peter Palladius, the First Evangelical Bishop of Zealand" — in the first half of the sixteenth century, on the day before the Feast of the Annunciation, about eighty fishermen were gathered on the ice to catch eels. The ice broke beneath them, so that they sank into the water up to their hips and were carried off with the splitting ice, until at last they were separated from one another; twenty-eight or twenty-nine of them lost their lives. But while they were still together, one of the fishermen, Hans Bentsen, who was born in Odense and had been a pupil of Bishop Palladius, called out to his companions, together with several others: Dear brothers, let us not fall into despair because we must perish in the water, but let us prove by our deeds that we have heard the Word of God. Thereupon they sang together the hymn "Come, Holy Spirit, Lord and God" and then the dying hymn "In Peace and Joy I Now Depart." When this singing was finished, they fell on their knees, so that the water reached up to under their arms, and they prayed God that He would take them away by a blessed death. — In the telling of this story the people of Copenhagen are praised for their exceptional love of the Word of God and their diligent attendance at church. May this simple account move its readers to make themselves worthy of the same praise!

(Submitted by Pastor Löber.)

Recollection of the Commemoration of the Peace of Westphalia, Concluded Two Hundred Years Ago.

The church reports recorded in the Acta Historico-Ecclesiastica of the year 1748 supply, among other things, a detailed description of the great festivities with which the Lutheran Church, now a hundred years ago, celebrated the jubilee in memory of that important and unforgettable peace by which gracious God, in the year 1648, put an end to the terrible afflictions of the Thirty Years' War.*)

*) Cf. vol. XII, p. 880ff., and vol. XIII, p. 727ff.

Whoever has heard or read even a little about this war will know how it not only devastated our German fatherland most wretchedly, reduced countless churches, villages, and towns to ashes, and left whole regions almost uninhabited, but also very nearly brought about the downfall of evangelical-Lutheran Zion before the eyes of men. For this was the longest and bloodiest war ever waged, probably, within human memory, and it was fought chiefly for the sake of religion. It was a fearful judgment of God, with which He then chastised and visited our Church — a woeful time, of which many ruins are still to be seen in the fatherland, and many memorials are to be found in history, as well as in the hymns and prayers of our Lutheran forefathers. It is therefore quite understandable that, a hundred years ago — as may also be read in the continuation of Heinsius's Church History — the memory of that peace was celebrated with great thanksgiving and praise to God, through which our Church was once again assured of unhindered and free exercise of religion. Countless writings are listed in the reports cited, which appeared a hundred years ago in order to impress deeply upon the memory of the whole of evangelical Christendom, and of all its children and descendants, the recollection of that dreadful war and of the blessing of the peace that followed it.

We therefore also firmly believe that the evangelical Church of our German fatherland will likewise not let the present year pass without solemnly celebrating, for the second time, the memory of that great world-historical event. But now the question arises whether we too, the Evangelical Lutherans in America, wish to join in this jubilee celebration, which, after all, has historical significance chiefly for the Church of the fatherland. On this point the following reasons might be worth considering, which could indeed move us to join in such an observance:

1. God's Word teaches us in countless places to preserve, down to the latest times, in faithful remembrance — to the praise of His name, for warning, for comfort, and for hope — what God did for His people in ancient days.

2. We have all, more or less, enjoyed since our youth the fruits and consequences of that Peace of Westphalia, and have therefore, in most of the countries of our homeland, suffered no hindrance to public worship from Catholic rulers and authorities.

3. We all need earnest warnings against lukewarmness and false security, and must, as in the Schmalkaldic War, which arose soon after the blessed times of the Reformation,