# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1863_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32	Church and Contemporary History.

Diedrich writes in Räthsen's Kirchenzeitung für Lutheraner [Church Paper for Lutherans] of October 28 of last year: „Nagel himself and others slandered me at the '60 synod before the laity as a Grabauite; now he appeals to Grabau, because Grabau is striking out at me. What is one to call it when Nagel's paper No. 13 accuses my paper of flirting with Grabau, calling him „„a regiment-man above all regiment-men“““ — when the opposite is true. But see, already in No. 16 two essays of his are passed on to Nagel's readers as „„particularly worth taking to heart,““ so as the better to illustrate the Breslau system of church government. That is strong stuff indeed, even if not very noble. By the sentence of Grabau's: „„Here in America too the Diedrich-izing and crypto-Missourianizing has broken loose““ — he lets it be guessed what he takes us for, namely secret Missourians. Let him ask the Missourian brethren themselves whether they consider us secret friends. Not, to judge by their public papers.“ We Missourians, however, believe that Pastor Diedrich has never yet taken the trouble to learn what we actually teach. He evidently judges us only by hearsay and disjointed sentences.

Haag and Ludwig. In Räthsen's paper we read: „Haag has already sought the way back into the Union; but it is still closed to him there, where he is better known. Unfortunately he succeeded better in luring Pastor Ludwig onto his deceptive paths. And when the latter saw ruin before his eyes, he sailed with a favorable wind into the harbor of the Baden territorial church, and is now assistant pastor in Helmstadt near Sinsheim.“

Church Conditions in Schleswig. On this the Weimarer Sonntagsbote reports the following: „In Angeln, the largest and most important of the mixed districts, there was formerly a churchliness that could find its equal nowhere in all Germany. And today? One can see men weep bloody tears over the present state of things — tears that speak a more eloquent language than the most striking arguments. Of 52 Sundays, the inhabitants of the mixed districts are deprived of 26, which are given over to „the Danish teaching,“ as popular speech calls the Danish worship service. They who hold to the German Bible and the German hymnal as the best inheritance of their fathers are compelled to procure a Danish Bible and a Danish hymnal for their children. The preachers are by no means an object of trust and affection; in most parishes they are downright hated, and the name „black gendarmes,“ as they are called in these districts, shows plainly enough with what eye people regard them.

At the Schleswig cathedral there now presides a certain Martens as Probst, a native of Flensburg, formerly holding a small village living. In 1849 he wrote a pamphlet defending Danish rule, and was afterward made cathedral provost and Knight of the Danebrog. Despite standing in very ill repute, the peasants would still rather have him, a Dane, as their pastor. A traveler reports the following conversation, which he had with peasants from various parishes of Angeln about their Danish pastors. „Tell me, do you know Pastor Martens in Schleswig, provost and pastor at the cathedral church?“ — „Yes,“ was the general answer. „Would you accept Martens as pastor in place of any of your Danish pastors?“ They stared at me. „In place of any of them?“ they then cried — „we would trade him for any one of them.“ — „But, my good people, do you also know that Martens drinks; that he thinks of nothing but making money and taking everything he can get; that at christenings and weddings he pockets everything he can in the way of food, cigars, and wine; that he had leather pockets made for this purpose in his clerical coat; that he exceeds the fee schedule wherever people are foolish enough to pay it; that in Schleswig he stands in general contempt; that there they call him nothing but „Swinemartens“ [Pig-Martens], because““ — „We know all that; but every parish in Angeln would gladly trade its own pastor for „Swinemartens“!“

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