# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1863_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

23

Correspondence from Bohemia.
(From the Freimund of Sept. 25 and Oct. 2.)

As is known to you, since April 8, 1861 — that is, since the appearance of the so-called Protestant Patent by the highest authority — the "evangelical" Church of both confessions has attained a legal standing in Austria which we had to do without during the period of toleration (1781—1861). The evangelical Church is legally recognized in Austria by this Patent, and the former restrictive toleration regulations have partly ceased. I say partly, and not without reason. The Protestant Patent relates only to the internal constitution of the evangelical Church. As regards the relation of our Church to the Roman Catholic Church, matters stand to this hour just as before. Of an equality of rights for the evangelical Church over against Catholicism there can be no talk whatever; for to this day evangelical bridegrooms, before their marriage to Catholic women, are made to sign written undertakings concerning the Catholic upbringing of their children; parents who have gone over to the evangelical Church must raise their children in the Catholic religion; Catholic clergy are permitted to receive evangelical sick persons at once into the bosom of the Catholic Church. In general, the pressure which the Catholic Church exerts upon us is still very great and painful. To this is added the meager condition of the pastors and schoolteachers, which has remained just as it was before; they sigh under the same bodily want as formerly. And what is the consequence of this? That no one any longer wishes to devote himself to the clerical estate or to the teaching profession, in which he would have to gnaw at the bread of hunger. We have no new generation of clergy and schoolteachers coming up, and since most of the Lutheran preachers are already advanced in years and standing near the grave, the case may soon arise that one pastor will have to administer two congregations. Since our Lutheran congregations in Bohemia are many miles distant from one another, and moreover each congregation is itself scattered far and wide, the difficulty of such an administration is obvious. There is also a great want of Lutheran schoolteachers in Bohemia; for lack of such persons the Lutheran congregations find themselves in the sad position of having to call Reformed schoolteachers. That this is attended with great disadvantage for the Lutheran congregations no one will doubt; for it is obvious that thereby many a doctrine of Calvinism is smuggled into the Lutheran congregations. In Bohemia there are 17 Lutheran congregations, 7 of German and 10 of Bohemian tongue. There are 38 Reformed congregations, situated for the most part in the blessed flat country, while the Lutheran congregations are situated for the most part in mountainous regions. The Reformed congregations placed themselves at the head of the Bohemian national movement and vie in this with the lower Roman clergy, who for their part, through support of the Bohe—