# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1861_S377
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Axioms. 377

...to publish it in print, for they have long since become convinced in practice that everything said in the introductory words about the high importance and manifold usefulness of such axioms is nothing but the simple, plain truth. But of course, the rich fullness of doctrinal content compressed here into words so brief and yet so clear and precise will only truly open itself up, and this treasury of wholesome knowledge will only truly prove itself fruitful, when these propositions are not merely read attentively and pondered in passing, but are actually and earnestly studied — which is indeed made so easy here, where, added to the collector's diligence and discernment, comes the dogmatician's faithful labor and skill, who has not only arranged these golden propositions according to the various articles of doctrine, but has also drawn them up in battle-order, as it were, in a closed phalanx. And I will tell you a still better way. Our local biweekly private conference has for some time now made these axioms the regular subject of its discussions. I had the good fortune to join it just when the very important propositions on the interpretation of Scripture — so often forgotten, alas, in our day — were being worked through, and I can testify to you with great heartfelt joy that, although these propositions were in part not unknown to me, and although I had already read them with great interest, indeed with delight, I nevertheless had to marvel at the wealth of theological thought, at the fullness of wholesome knowledge that emerged when the propositions were talked through in lively exchange, their content further expounded and illustrated here and there with examples and instances, their coherence and sequence demonstrated, and their high importance and significance for doctrinal controversies and so-called burning questions of the day discussed. Quickly the hours of fellowship, so profitably spent, flew by, and reluctantly, yet enriched with treasures of advanced knowledge, with golden grains of the old, ever-unchanging truth in new splendor, the brothers parted, only to hasten back again from every side on the next conference day, some from a considerable distance, with heightened longing to draw from this pure and rich little spring. Now, thank God, there still exist many other such private conferences in our synod, and several more could yet be called into being, since for the most part at least some fellow pastors are also neighbors in office and can occasionally reach one another. But sometimes suitable material is lacking for a truly lively and edifying exchange; the hours creep slowly by, the brothers hurry apart and hesitate to come together again, for their zeal grows slack because the right satisfaction is missing. Now see, here you have material in abundance — indeed, pure, genuine, well-tested material of the wholesome doctrine that is everything to Lutherans, around which everything else with them revolves, from which everything else flows, and by which everything else is conditioned. So do try it for once. Come together, after each of you has first gone through a section of the axioms on your own, and let one of you, perhaps...