# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1863_S382
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

382 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

still perhaps unknown to you. It is, in large octavo, a deluxe edition of 300 sheets
in 30 installments at 15 silver groschen [each]. That is a heavy temptation for so poor
a Lutheran pastor. It is to me a joy and a marvel at once that despite the war your
synod still moves forward so vigorously. I can only hope and wish that the Lord may
ever remain to your churches, in these hard times, a true shield and a strong fortress.
— On the 6th or 9th of October the pre-synod will be convened; in the same days, as a
sign of the times, the Universal Church Congress set on foot from Baden (through
Schenkel) meets in Frankfurt, which intends to lay the cornerstone of the German
national church."

Pastor Hofmann in Gedern, at the instance of the local inhabitants, established
an institute which had just begun to prosper somewhat when new persecutions broke
in upon him. He writes on Sept. 21 to Ehlers: "A few weeks ago a conviction came down
to a fine of 100 gulden for [unauthorized] worship in Kleinlinden, and a little over
8 days ago a further one of 100 gulden for a baptism in Gedern, and besides this the
notice that fines previously remitted, of 50 and 80 gulden, were being demanded again
— that comes to 330 together, with costs probably over 340 gulden. Where is that to be
paid from? Were I to work it off in prison, I should have to remain there about 230
days, but then my school would also collapse. God grant help in this, and stir the
hearts of those to whom He has given earthly goods to administer, to help me pay these
fines for Christ's sake. We do hope indeed that this cannot go on much longer, and that
people in our country will at last learn to abhor every compulsion in matters of faith
and conscience."

School Inspection. The following we take from the "Freimund" of Sept. 24:
in the "South German School Messenger" there recently appeared the following
"correspondence from Oldenburg" to be read: "Among us the principle of the separation
of school from church — that is, the dissolution of the previous relation of the
clergy, as servants of the church, to the schoolmasters — has been carried out fully.
Only the government, as well as the estates, at once entrusted all the clergy, as
citizens of the state, with the local supervision of the schools, because other
suitable persons could by no means be found .. The district or circuit inspectors are
for the most part likewise chosen from the ranks of the clergy, and for the remaining
part from the schoolmaster class. Those teachers, now, who stand under the latter,
wish everywhere to have the former back again, because they feel themselves far more
constrained or oppressed under the conceited and self-important manner of their former
colleagues than is generally the case under the clerical inspectors .. As elsewhere, so
here too, the present movement in the school estate has not arisen from the midst of
the population, nor from its wishes, nor with its consent." — N.B.! In Bavaria the
clergy have long since been entrusted with school inspection not as servants of the
church but as servants of the state; as school inspectors they stand not under the
church government but under the state government, and receive, as bearers of this
honor and burden, not one red cent of salary.

M. Baumgarten, formerly professor at Rostock, has published a book about David
and his kingdom in which the prophet Samuel is styled "an old republican"! So reports
the Waldeck Sunday Messenger in No. 34 of this year.

In Prussia, Herr von Bismarck has made the Lutherans in the state church fine
assurances or hopes for their confession. Whether he will be able to keep them,
however, is another question. So writes the Waldeck Sunday Messenger in the place
cited.

Prussia. On Sept. 7 the pastors Diedrich, Räthjen, Ehlers, Wolf, and
Crome held a conference in Wulkow (near Neu-Ruppin). Räthjen reports on it:
"As the first subject of our deliberation Pastor Crome laid before us 7 theses, with
the wish that we might, as unanimously as possible, commit ourselves to their content
as against the errors which have currently arisen within Lutheran church fellowships.
In discussing the 7 theses we did not come entirely to a close, and since besides we
were but few gathered together and most of the pastors were absent, the wording of
them is not yet finished. They will be communicated to those absent and, after their