# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1864_S89
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church-Related Contemporary Affairs.   89

have resisted for a time. The decision as to the loyalty of these persons in the South will be a difficult task for the preacher, and it will perhaps be most fitting for him, in this matter, to follow the procedure of the United States authorities and likewise regard as loyal all whom they have recognized as such. It might also be fitting to require a special oath of loyalty as a condition of church membership. But the most delicate questions will likely arise with respect to the possession of church property. According to report, the Secretary of War has instructed our bishops to take temporary possession of the property of dissolved or disloyal churches in the southern states. Loyal members of the southern Methodist congregations remain the lawful owners of the churches and must decide for themselves under which (ecclesiastical) jurisdiction they wish to place themselves. Where no loyal persons claim the ownership rights of abandoned southern churches, these fall to the United States government."

The "Apologet," organ of the German Methodists, complains about its prospects in the year 1864 and remarks: "Political sentiments have without doubt here and there estranged from us many old subscribers — especially in Ohio and in Illinois. How former friends of the Apologete can renounce it for political reasons is inexplicable to us, since it could not act more moderately in this regard without making itself guilty of violating the most sacred duties toward the government of the country and the common good, and without proving itself an enemy of truth, justice, and freedom."

A New Church. How new churches are made in America is reported by the "Fröhliche Botschafter" of Dayton, Ohio (an organ of the "United Brethren in Christ") of January 21. It writes: Not far from the town of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, some four miles southeast of it, a congregation built a church there a little over a year ago, in the name and for the use of the "United Brethren in Christ." At the same time, and perhaps even somewhat earlier, it occurred to many members of the said congregation that the United Brethren, and especially their preachers, were not exactly what and how they ought to be. When, therefore, the East Pennsylvania Conference, at its last session, appointed the preacher who was to travel the circuit that included the said congregation, these members let it be known that they did not wish to hear the said preacher. The preacher said, "If they will not hear me, then I will not preach to them either," and thereupon let the appointment to the new church go. Whatever preachers among the various denominations pleased these people, these they invited to preach to them in the new church. So the year passed amid alternating grumbling on the part of these people about the church discipline of the United Brethren and about the authority of the United States. Toward the end of the year it occurred to the said people to form their own fellowship. They accordingly made application to the proper authorities for a charter and for a change to the deed of the new church. And these are said to be the peculiarities of the requested articles of incorporation: that its parish shall be limited to a radius of a mile and a half; that whoever lives within this radius, is eighteen years old, and pays a certain sum of money may become a member of the church, though under other conditions no one is to be admitted into the congregation; that no one shall preach to the congregation without having first had an appointment made known to him by the congregation at a public meeting. What further conditions there may be in the said requested charter I have not so far been told. But since the deed of the new church is made out to the names of the trustees and their successors in office as property entrusted to the church of the United Brethren in Christ, the said people will probably seek in vain to draw the church to themselves.

The northern-minded Catholics of the United States now find themselves in an unpleasant conflict with their evidently more southern-minded Holy Father. This is most clearly to be noted in the "Wahrheitsfreund." In its issue of January 27 there is found, among other things, a letter addressed to his "faithful" from the Arch-