# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1862_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

124    Church News of the Day.

Brands upon their own conscience. One need only read the sermons of a Beecher, a Cheever, and other leading preachers in New York, and their imitators in Philadelphia who thirst after popularity, and one could weep tears over the deluding spirit that has taken possession of such men. There is loud applause, hand-clapping and stamping, and the political newspapers (even those hostile to Christianity) naturally scatter incense to such men in large editions — incense so pleasing to weak man. But should not a preacher who believes himself called by God to kindle holy fire upon the altar of God be strong enough to cry out, in the face of such a bait, his divine Master's mighty word: "Get thee behind me, Satan!"? We think, Yes. Let us therefore be on guard against the enemy's assault, in whatever shape it may come. Let us also consider that we are not yet at the end of the tribulations. Let us save our overflowing exultation until the end shall have come. Let us watch and pray that we fall not into temptation — even when we have cause for joy — and let us keep measure and limit in all things. — "Cursed is the man," says God through the prophet (Jer. 17:5), "that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm."

The "historical Zeitblatt," formerly published by Deacon Hochstetter, afterward by the bookseller Bär in Buffalo, will, as its March number announces, cease to appear once its present volume is completed.

II. Abroad.

Neuendettelsau. In a report on the mission institute of the Rev. Pastor Löhe in Neuendettelsau, found in the "Mittheilungen aus und über Nordamerica" of January of this year, it says, among other things: "The Lutheran Church in Prussia has sent us many an awakened young man. But here too the mistakenly understood (?) zeal for orthodoxy and Lutheran tradition seems to want to tear apart the bond of fellowship with those who are its nearest kin and allies." Yet Pastor Löhe will never see that it is precisely those who abolish the fellowship of doctrine and faith who tear apart the bond of fellowship — not those who, after this inner bond has been torn, no longer wish to maintain the outward fellowship!

Dr. Tholuck's misgivings concerning rationalism. From an address of Tholuck's, delivered before the Evangelical Alliance at Geneva and printed in the number of February 13 of the "Reformed Kirchen-Zeitung," we take the following remarkable passage: "Among us, to be sure, rationalism has lost its power in the clergy and in a part of the higher classes; but unless I am mistaken, it will appear among us in a still more negative form and will first seize hold of the masses. Already we see, outside our fatherland, in the German-speaking Switzerland, in France, Holland, and even in believing England, so radical a rationalism arising within the churches as has not even been able to establish itself among us in scholarship; it is but the echo of that philosophical negation which has been overcome again among us, but the echo falls back doubled into our own fatherland. As I fear, the time is near when the old battles will have to be fought through again in sharper fashion." So even Tholuck notices that the poor congregations, into which the deadly poison of rationalism was so wickedly first introduced, are by no means yet healed of it.    C.

Hengstenberg and the Prussian Lutherans. The former, according to his preface this year, places himself essentially on the side of the Supreme Church Council [Ober-Kirchencollegium]. Doubtless in this dispute Dr. Hengstenberg's eyes are held shut by that very body, through the thought — which so firmly binds him to the territorial church of Prussia — that the church is enabled to fulfill its mission only through its fusion with the state. This leads the distinguished theologian, among other things, to the highly dangerous remark on Matt. 20:25, Luke 22:(25) 26: "According to him (this saying), there is among the