# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1862_S320
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

320 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

judge that we do not descend from October 13, 1781, but from July 6, 1415 (the day of Hus's death) . . .: that would be indolence, that would be ignorance, contempt of our own people and ingratitude toward our fathers! Calvinism and Lutheranism are foreign flowers which we did not cultivate here at home. Others gave them to us, who governed us. We wish, then, to become original again; let the Germans be Germans, the French be French, but we wish to become Bohemians again. We wish to become original, neither Helvetic nor Augsburg, but purified Evangelicals with two confessions, the Fraternal [Confession] of the year 1535 and the Bohemian of the year 1575, and we wish to draw from the treasures bequeathed to us by our fathers. The Germans were once indeed behind us; let us leave them behind again; what they have not hitherto been able to carry through, we will show them." How deep-reaching (!) a renewal of the old Bohemian Brethren church is intended may be seen from the close of the article: "Finally, let our outward appearance too be original. Here I remark above all that it is a perverse and unworthy habit to shave the face." — Certainly the appearance of the Bohemian Brethren before the Reformation was a mighty sign that the true church had not yet died out; but after the Reformation of the church wrought by God himself, and after the withering of that plant, it cannot be brought back again to its former shape and bloom.

Dresden, July 27. A Ministry-of-Culture ordinance published these last few days, concerning the oath of religion, contains new oath formulas for religious functionaries both secular and clerical, including teachers. These provisions are taken from the draft of a church order rejected by the Diet. It reads as follows: All teachers at gymnasia, Realschulen, teacher-training seminaries, and public schools (with the exception of teachers of the arts and physical skills, writing masters, etc., and further whomever else the ministry deems it permissible to grant dispensation to) are to be bound by formulas which read: "I swear that I will constantly, without deceit, remain true to the pure doctrine of the Evangelical-Lutheran church as adopted in these lands — as it is set forth and expounded in Holy Scripture, in the first unaltered Augsburg Confession, and in Dr. Luther's two catechisms — that I will present it unfalsified, and that, should I depart from the doctrinal system adopted by the Evangelical church, I will report this to my superiors without delay."

The Reformed in the Hanoverian territory, who have hitherto stood under Lutheran authorities, have resolved, at a conference held on July 8 in Lingen, to address a petition to the territorial government requesting a separate constitution for the Reformed congregations of the Kingdom of Hanover.

Freiburg, August 18. Under this date we read the following in the Katholische H.: The weeds shoot up ever more luxuriantly in the new era and are already beginning to bear fruit. Hear this and be horrified: today, in broad daylight between 11 and 12 o'clock, four journeymen here — who were probably keeping their "blue Monday" [i.e., skipping work] — proceeded from the house of their landlady on the Löwengasse to their workshop on the Niemensgasse. One of the four journeymen carried the image of the crucified Savior in front, and while one of the offenders sang obscenities in a vesper-tone, the others answered in chorus, litany-fashion, with "Amen!" All this took place not in some corner of the city, but on a busy street near the mayor's residence. Nor did it happen unnoticed; rather, many people who heard the wild singing looked out of windows and doors and loudly voiced their indignation at this blasphemy. As we hear, the police have already begun inquiries, and the offenders will not escape their deserved punishment.