# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1862_S17
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Observer. 17

the first to bring my sons from afar, etc.' Now look at the facts impartially. Were not the Spanish ships the first in the discovery and opening of an emigration into the new world? After Columbus had been turned away time and again by almost every court in Europe, he was received and supported in his mission as a discoverer by Ferdinand and Isabella. — So our great country, in that it corresponds so exactly to the predictions concerning the nationality that was to arise, is the nation that was born to God in a single day — the birthday of the United States as a free and independent republic, on the 4th of July, 1776. — One must read the book carefully in order to appreciate it. To an American heart the subject is piercing beyond all conception. As the argument advances, the truth of the theory dawns upon the soul like the morning ray, and settles there the conviction that our great country is portrayed in a special way in the pages of revealed truth. I recommend the work most warmly to every American citizen." — Sat, satis, superque.

Proof Texts. Under this title there appears, in the same number of the Observer, an article signed: B. K. (Benj. Kurtz). Judging by its opening, one would think its tendency was to properly bring out the importance of biblical proof texts and to impress upon preachers the importance of their careful, exact selection. But how bitterly the sequel disappoints, showing rather that the chief aim is to present a preconceived opinion as the correct interpretation of certain important proof texts, and to interpret their divine content away in a rationalizing manner. As proof of this, the following passages: "Matt. 26:26: 'This is my body,' seems to teach not only the presence of the body of Christ in the Supper, but even the doctrine of transubstantiation itself. But does this passage prove this? Apply the same latitude to other similar and equally weighty statements in the revealed Scripture, and see into what extreme absurdities and what flourishing nonsense you will be led." — "'As in Adam all die' (1 Cor. 15:22) seems to teach, and is cited as proof, that the whole human race, in its origin, right, personality, and responsibility, lived in Adam and died in his death. But it only seems so, for no thought is so infinitely far from the apostle's teaching as this delusion. (Easy enough to assert.) According to his meaning, as it shines forth at first glance from his words, no such tasteless transcendentalism can, according to their proper context, be recovered from them." — "John 3:5: 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' Some understand by water in this passage the sacrament of baptism, and if we grant this for the sake of argument, the passage seems to favor regeneration through baptism. However important baptism may