# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1862_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church News of the Day.    189

received; and of all these, all but three or four died." — This is, among other things, also proof of how the frequent postponement of baptism here so often finally works to the advantage of the Roman church.

II. Abroad.

Döllinger on Luther and the Lutheran Hymns. How far fanatical hatred can blind even a learned and sharp-sighted man is shown by an interesting example in the judgment of the famous Catholic theologian and professor Döllinger on Luther and the Lutheran hymns, of which we take the following from the 2nd number of the 1st volume of the Erlangen "Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und Kirche": "The churches of the Protestants," says Döllinger, "are 'schools or lecture halls; their pulpits are popularized professorial chairs. It began with theses for an academic disputation. The 'Word,' as its founder used to say — who at bottom never stepped out of his professorial role — is in fact its first and last and only word. It teaches, and then it steps down. It preaches and sings, but its songs are not hymns, but for the most part versified theological treatises or rhymed sermons.'" — Such is Döllinger's judgment of Luther, of the treasury of spiritual songs of the Lutheran church; thus he speaks of the Word, of the Word of God! —

I could hardly trust my eyes when I read: the Lutheran church "preaches and sings, but its songs are not hymns, but for the most part versified theological treatises or rhymed sermons," when I read: "the Word is, as its founder used to say — who at bottom never stepped out of his professorial role — its first and last and only word!" —

Naturally, on reading this, one thinks first of the "versified theological treatises" that we have from that founder and professor. Döllinger perhaps knows the one treatise; it begins: "A mighty fortress is our God." Quite in keeping with his characterization of the professor of the Word, who never stepped out of his role, it says further on in the treatise: "The Word they still shall let remain, and no thanks have for it." And the beginning of a second such treatise by the same professor begins: "Lord, keep us in thy Word" etc. So again, "the Word." — Well sent home indeed, and well deserved from the learned gentleman.    C.

The Prussian Union Church. We read the following in the Freimund of March 20: "Pastor Hofmeier at Straupitz in the Lower Lusatia has refused to introduce the parish church council unless his congregation is recognized as a 'non-united Lutheran' one; unless Lutheran synods are held out in prospect for establishing the constitution of the Lutheran congregations; unless the parish church councils were to assume, toward the pastoral office, the proper position of helpers rather than that of the pastorate itself; and unless the unscriptural justification in the installation formula were struck out! — After long, fruitless negotiation he has now — he being a very highly regarded clergyman — been suspended from office by the Supreme Church Council. — Important for judging the conditions of the Evangelical-United territorial church of Prussia! —

The Berlin Association for the emigrated Evangelical Germans in the western part of North America has issued an appeal, in which it states, among other things: "Our church does almost nothing here, while the various sects do everything in their power to win the elements of immigration for themselves. Twenty-five years ago the Episcopal Methodist Church had not a single German congregation in North America; now it has three hundred of them, with four hundred and ten preachers. The Albright people, an offshoot of the Methodists, whose congregation was only founded in the year 1800, already had, in the year 1855, among the immigrant Protestants, four hundred seventy-four traveling and local preachers. Twenty years ago the American Baptists did not have a single German preacher; now they have about fifty. During the last twenty-five years, close to eight hundred German congregations have been founded by English-speaking sects, all of whose members belong to the Evangelical Church of Germany. When the mother church neglects to seek out its scattered members in their thickets and on remote prairies, the dissenters and English sects step into its place." "Such deeply lamentable