# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1862_S236
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

236    Unionism in the Grand Duchy of Hesse.

are the right holds, which the devil shuns or flees. He indeed mocks greater things; there must be earnestness here . . . .

But do see to it that you stand in true faith, hear God's Word, and pray earnestly; for when the priest says, Let us pray, he is thereby admonishing you indeed to pray with him. All the godparents, too, and those standing round about, should speak the words of his prayer with him to God in their hearts. Therefore the priest should speak this prayer clearly and slowly, so that the godparents can hear and understand it, and so that the godparents, too, may pray with the priest unanimously in their hearts, bear the child's need before God as earnestly as possible, set themselves with all their strength against the devil on the child's behalf, and conduct themselves so as to make it a matter of real earnestness to them — one that is no mockery to the devil.

"Hence it was once the custom that the newly baptized went about clothed in a white baptismal garment for eight days after baptism, since they were not yet all Christians, but the greater part were still heathen. And at Easter, too, they went about clad in white. Hence one still calls the Sunday after Easter White Sunday, as if they wished, by deed and work, to say and publicly confess that they had been baptized and cleansed by Christ. But since we are all now baptized, this custom has lapsed, which I do not wish to renew or bring back again, although it is still in use to this day." (Table Talk, 59, 67. Erlangen ed.)

Unionism in the Grand Duchy of Hesse

and Its Nearest Consequences. A Contemporary Historical Illumination, by One from Between the Main and the Rhine. (Frankfurt am Main, published by Brömer. 1862. 40 pp.).

A small pamphlet which, with sharp, incisive strokes, brings a piece of Hessian conditions into view — conditions that, unfortunately, form a significant part of ecclesiastical conditions generally and everywhere — and which can serve those who wish to see, to show them where we stand, and whither we are being led, by fair means and foul, learnedly and bluntly. The author has for a series of years sought to raise dams against the encroaching flood, and speaks out of long experience and thorough knowledge of the ruin involved. Now necessity compels him to speak publicly. Readers will already know from the periodical press what is going on in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Emboldened by the developments in Baden and the Palatinate, the ecclesiastical party of subversion is rising up to stage its final sweep in Hesse as well, and it is by no means without hope of success. How it goes about this, and what plays into its hands, the author has in this pamphlet made plain even to the dullest eyes.

Now for many years the human understanding, with the sum of knowledge it has acquired on its own, supported by modern learning, has meddled with the Word of God — not as a modest hired hand, but as an insolent master — and has thereby