# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1863_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

30	Church and Contemporary History.

...repeated convictions have followed, precisely of Protestant preachers, on account of their polemics against the doctrines or customs of the Roman Church. No one asked whether the polemic was grounded in truth or was slanderous and distorting, but on the strength of the law even those were punished who had spoken the plain, notorious truth, when this truth, as was quite natural, had resulted in contempt for the papist false doctrines. The Rhenish Provincial Synod has therefore, at its sessions in Neuwied in September of last year, resolved to call upon the cooperation of the Minister of Justice for the amendment of that paragraph.

General Church and School Visitation. Hitherto there existed in Prussia, alongside the special visitation conducted by provincial officials, also a general one. As a result, the two have at times, particularly in dealings with the congregations themselves, come into conflict. The Rhenish Provincial Synod has therefore, by an overwhelming majority at its sessions of last year, resolved: „to request the Consistory, since experience with this institution has now been gathered for about ten years, henceforth to refrain from it for a time, in order also to gain the experience of whether the results desired on all sides might not be achieved through the present regular visitation.“ We feel prompted to note this here, since the question also arises among us at present whether, alongside the visitation by the District Presidents, the general one ought still to take place — not, to be sure, on account of conflicts that have arisen, but for the sake of the ever-growing number of congregations.

Dr. Georg Reich, first pastor at Reichelsheim in the Hessian Odenwald, known for many fine testimonies to Lutheran truths in Hesse, died on October 1 of last year. Born in 1813, he was until 1851 a teacher at the Realschule in Offenbach.

Hanover. How sadly matters stand, in part, even among the Hanoverian preachers who claim to stand on reformational ground, one may gather, among other things, from a correspondence from Celle of October 7 of last year to the Allg. Kz., in which it states: „The preachers' conference has just concluded, and indeed with a result satisfying in every respect. The assembly, consisting of 44 clergymen, was public. The resolutions are as follows: 1) The assembly declares that it holds fast to the principles of the evangelical Church as the Reformers shaped it, grounded on the Word of God in the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures as the norm of faith and doctrine. 2) The assembly holds no Lutheran clergyman authorized, in opposition to the school congregation, to make any catechism other than the territorial catechism — where this is legally established — the basis of instruction. 3) There is an urgent need that the Lutheran church congregation attain a firm and living congregational order, with adequate influence on the choice of preachers and teachers; and that a common bond be gained in a provincial and territorial synod. To realize these wishes an assembly of clergy and laity shall be arranged; a committee to be elected shall prepare it and fix the place and time. The assembly closed with a prayer and the hymn: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!“

The poet Ludwig Uhland died on November 14 of last year in his native city of Tübingen, in the 77th year of his age.

Crome too, pastor at Rade vorm Walde, has, together with part of his congregation, withdrawn from the union of the Prussian Lutheran Church under the Oberkirchencollegium in Breslau. He writes, under date of October 6 of last year, in Ehlers' Kirchliches Zeitblatt, among other things, the following: „On Friday evening, September 26, Pastor Feldner — after he had in the afternoon negotiated with members of my congregation and two of my elders, who had complied with the summons issued the day before to the elders to present themselves to him — along with notice of the disciplinary investigation to be further pursued against me, at the same time decreed my suspension from office and presented himself as acting in my place. As the ground for this removal from office prior to the conclusion of the proceedings against me, he cites, on principle, my disobedience toward the existing