# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S351
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History.                    351

refer, where it says: "'Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God!'" —

Hanover. According to a report of the Zeitung für Norddeutschland, at the elections to the pre-synod in Hanover the orthodox carried only 10—12 out of the several hundred electors to be chosen; all the rest belong to the Celle progressive party. — The jubilation of this party over the great victory it has won is naturally great. (Freimund.)

Slavery. In his "Mittheilungen aus und über Nordamerika" of July of this year, when Pastor Löhe communicates the main propositions from Dr. Sihler's essay "Slavery in the Light of Holy Scripture," he declares in the said number: "Without presuming to pass judgment on the American circumstances themselves, one must nevertheless assent, from the standpoint of Scripture, to the view underlying these propositions."

The Apocrypha Storm in Scotland. Queen Victoria has had a monument erected in Balmoral to her late consort, Prince Albert, and has had inscribed upon it the saying from Wisdom 4: "But the righteous, though he die before his time, shall be at rest. For honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years; but he pleased God, and was beloved of him, so that living among sinners he was translated." This saying may often have been used among us as a text for funeral sermons, for it is provided for that purpose in our church order. One might perhaps ask only whether it is proper to bring such an apocryphal text into public worship; but what could be said against its being placed on a monument? In Scotland a veritable uproar has broken out over it. In the general assembly of the Free Church, Dr. Candlish raised a loud outcry. He saw in it an attack on Holy Scripture, which was thereby placed on the same level as the Apocrypha, and he surmised that the Queen's advisers had made a treacherous attempt to give aid either to Catholicism, which declares the Apocrypha to be God's Word, or to the free spirits who hold even Holy Scripture itself to be apocryphal. He appealed to the fact that such an apocryphal inscription was without precedent or example, and that here, accordingly, a manifest innovation was at hand. The general assembly heard the outburst with silent approval and was evidently in agreement with Candlish's demand that the inscription should be removed again. For the Presbyterians are very sensitive on this point. The immediate consequence, however, was that a respected member of the Free Church, Dr. Hanna, declared his withdrawal. It had touched him unpleasantly that anyone should have handled his most gracious Queen so roughly, and Candlish himself was compelled to clear himself publicly, as though his attack had been aimed at the Queen. The Apocrypha are not God's Word — but does that rule out God's Word being present in the Apocrypha? Is not this God's Word: "Set God always before thine eyes," etc.? (N. Ztbl.)

The Elections to the Hanoverian Pre-Synod. Concerning their outcome Dr. Münkel and others report the following: "Since the election reports available are still very incomplete, it is difficult to reach a conclusive judgment. Still, on the strength of the reports at hand, one may assert on the one hand that the strongly preponderant majority is on the side of the Celle party, but on the other hand that the 'crushing' majority must be relegated to the land of momentary dreams of victory. In some — probably not a few — congregations, only a tenth or less has withstood the Celle party; in others, likewise not a few, this resistance rose to a third, in some cases to nearly a half. We are still awaiting more precise figures as to in how many congregations the resistance has exceeded half and gained the majority. In the electoral district of Achim alone, seven such congregations are counted, and probably in East Friesland they form a considerably larger number. Cases seem not to be frequent in which the whole congregation has come out for the Celle party, and it is possible that precisely here stand pastors of the kind we have no small number of, to the detriment of our church. — The other side of these developments is formed by the elections of the clergy, who according to the law had their twenty-four