# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1863_S25
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Correspondence from Bohemia. 25

Consistorial Councillor Zimmermann as President and signed by Samuel Bell. Decrees of this kind bear the character of purely political ordinances and contain not a word of the strengthening of faith, of comfort, or of exhortation. Add to this that the Supreme Church Council is in fact unionistic. Of any loyalty to the confession on the part of the preachers there can be no talk in the presence of the Supreme Church Council. The former Consistory introduced, in place of the small Lutheran catechism, the rationalistic catechism of Pastor Schulek. The Augustana was known in the Bohemian congregations only by name, until it was translated word for word and published in print in the year 1856. The preachers were directed to use the rationalistic Viennese Agenda of Glatz, and had, moreover, to translate it themselves into the Bohemian language. In recent years the Württemberg Agenda was exceptionally permitted for use. It must further be noted that the Viennese Supreme Church Council does not know the evangelical congregations in Bohemia and Moravia at all. Not one of the Viennese gentlemen has yet condescended so far as to visit a Bohemian congregation, in order to convince himself personally of its condition.

Now how do preachers loyal to the faith and to the confession fare under such a church government? Let us cast a glance at the German-Lutheran congregation in Prague. There, dear reader, you find a Lutheran preacher, Pastor Martius, who, because of his loyalty to the faith and the confession, is exposed to the greatest suffering from the greater part of his congregation, which pays homage to the modern spirit. This God-fearing man, who could serve as a model for every Lutheran preacher, suffers reproach for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ. He does not complain that he must bear this reproach; were he a missionary and were it to befall him from the heathen, he would willingly bear it; but it causes him the greatest pain that this reproach comes to him from a Christian congregation. He preaches the Word of God purely and clearly and with joyful opening of the mouth, and yet the churchwarden of this congregation, Dr. Leonhardi, says that the Prague congregation must go entirely without churchly edification. We commend our dear afflicted brother Martius to the fervent intercession of all the Lutherans of Germany, that the Lord may strengthen him in his nameless suffering. With the Supreme Church Council Pastor Martius finds no protection. He is recommended nothing but pastoral prudence.

It is well known that German (Lutheran and Reformed) congregations in Austria are joining the Gustavus Adolphus Association one after another. In Bohemia no inclination toward this has as yet appeared, neither among the Lutheran nor among the Reformed congregations. We Lutherans, were we obliged to join any association at all, would join the "God's-chests" [poor-relief funds] of Germany.

In the course of this year the good Mecklenburg land-