# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1863_S249
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History. 249

they do not outright expel the slaveholder, [but] regard it as their duty to declare slavery an evil that ought to be rooted out — to fix the guilt of the people and of the churches of America for their failure to make sufficient efforts toward attaining this end — and to press for more serious and vigorous measures to bring about the final removal of the evil. This position is taken, with slight variation, by the New School Presbyterians, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the General Assembly of the Baptists, the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed Church. These churches have, since the outbreak of the war, expressed themselves far more decisively on the slavery question, and many of them are gradually coming around to the position taken by those churches which make an unconditional renunciation of slavery a duty binding on their members."

The Union Doctrinal Basis from Cincinnati, which we communicated in the last number, was not only drafted and signed by a so-called Lutheran preacher (Dr. Harrison of Cincinnati), but is also thoroughly endorsed by the editor of the "Lutheran Observer" (see the number of June 19), who at the same time speaks in favor of giving up all "denominational peculiarities" and the "mere accidents of denominational distinction"; indeed, as we learn from the number of July 3 of the same paper, the entire Miami Synod, on the occasion of its annual convention of June 11, declared itself unanimously in favor of that basis and of similar steps toward establishing brotherly unity. This new proof that the "Lutheran" General Synod is nothing else than a united body — differing only in that it hypocritically retains the Lutheran name so as not to lose those paying members who wish to be Lutheran — proves, of course, nothing new.

Methodists. As we have already reported, a strong movement is now under way among the Episcopal Methodists for the laity also to have seat and voice in their conferences. However justified this agitation may be in itself against their previous hierarchical form of government, it seems nevertheless not to rest upon a correct understanding of the rights of Christians as such, and of the nature of church government, but rather to have its source more in the democratic spirit of the age. Thus the "Methodist" says: "That representation of the congregations by [lay] members must at last become a constitutional feature of the government of the Episcopal Methodist Church admits of no doubt. It cannot come about otherwise." (For, the writer means to say, time marches irresistibly on toward liberty and equality!) "This idea is so inseparably bound up with the principles of our civil government and of all our institutions, that the movement in favor of this principle can no longer go backward; unless we, as a free democratic people, also go backward and reject and disdain our hitherto form of government, under which only representatives of the people fill the offices. Reason and justice, as well as the principles of the New Testament, support our demand." The main ground, then, is the dignity of a free citizen of the state, to which, alongside reason and justice, the Word of God only lends its support!

The "Observer" on the Importance of the German Element in the English Lutheran Church. On this the paper named holds forth, in its number of June 19 of this year, as follows: "In my latest article I attempted to account for the continual loss our Church is suffering of so great a number of Germans and their descendants. I am well aware that some will say: "Let them go, we can get along without them." Thoughts like this are often entertained and often voiced precisely by such people whose names betray their German origin, and who cannot trace their family history very far back without coming upon some sturdy German man or worthy German woman. I knew a foolish family of this sort, who no longer attended Lutheran worship services, simply to escape the imagined disgrace of their German descent. Such conduct is the mark