# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1863_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

24 Correspondence from Bohemia.

...language and nationality is laboring with all its strength to reconcile the Bohemian people with Catholicism. The Lutheran-Bohemian congregations take no part whatever in this agitation and remain entirely passive. —

On the Saxon border the scattered German Lutherans have in recent times united into congregations, as in Romburg, Rosendorf, and Reichenberg; to this is now added the recently arisen Bohemian filial congregation of Spalow, whose inhabitants have fallen away from the Papacy and formed a Lutheran filial congregation. In these three filial congregations little churches are now being built. It is indeed to be observed that evangelical doctrine is gaining ever more ground in Bohemia; one could only wish that a truly evangelical life and a right evangelical faith might also take firm root in the congregations. Yet we may not conceal from ourselves that much decay is to be found in the Church here in Bohemia as well. Modern Rationalism, this spawn of the present age, has loosened the positive ground of our Church as well. That the new church constitution will not remedy this evil is obvious. On the contrary, it has brought into our congregations a democratic spirit which is already beginning to run riot here and there, and which, given the corruption of human nature, can not only fail to benefit the Church but work to its detriment. Below, all power lies in the hands of the presbytery, and above, in the hands of the Vienna Supreme Church Council. In the middle, between these two heterogeneous elements, stand the preachers and schoolteachers. The church constitution places the preacher on an equal footing with the other members of the presbytery; indeed, in cases of dispute they are set above the pastor. The Supreme Church Council — which even now must put up with a good deal from the presbyteries of the Reformed congregation — and which is really the one responsible for this church constitution, will sooner or later cry out in distress over the mischief that has broken loose in the Church, and the government will finally see itself compelled to intervene. It was forgotten that the eternal Word of God is the best church constitution. But the Word of God is no longer enough now; it does not suit — as they say — present-day circumstances, in which enlightenment strides forward by giant steps; one forsakes the Lord, the living fountain, and hews out for oneself here and there cisterns that are broken and hold no water [cf. Jeremiah 2:13].

The supreme church authority in Austria is the imperial-royal evangelical Supreme Church Council in Vienna (it consists of the same men as the former imperial-royal Consistory) for both confessions. At the head of this Supreme Church Council stand two political officials, Court Councillor Zimmermann (Lutheran) and Samuel Bell (Reformed). These two gentlemen represent the entire Supreme Church Council. There are also, to be sure, the two Vienna preachers Gunesch (Lutheran) and Franz (Reformed) assigned to the Supreme Church Council; but of their activity absolutely nothing is to be perceived. All decrees are issued by