# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1864_S126
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

126 Church and Contemporary History.

—er of a government, though a bad one, is nevertheless still better than a state of anarchy or the lack of any government at all. Likewise, servants are exhorted to fidelity and obedience, since thereby their condition of service is made tolerable and their spiritual growth and advancement might be promoted. A rebellion is only then to be justified when it is not merely successful, but also brings about better conditions than the system against which it rebelled could have afforded." Mr. Dr. Nast therefore holds the principle that one need not, for conscience's sake, as Paul says, be subject to a Nero, but rather out of considerations of prudence. He seems almost to hold fast to that maxim: Don't get caught!

"What Qualities Should the Next President Possess?" This question is answered by Dr. Nast in the religious part of his "Apologete," although the same paper also has an equally large "secular supplement" for the discussion of political affairs. Among the Methodists the boundary-markers between the religious and the political domain are entirely done away with.

Texas and New Orleans. From a correspondence article found in the Lutheran Kirchenbote of Feb. 19, we take the following reports. Pastors Helzinger in Yorktown, Fled in Indianola, and Kitterer in Victoria (all in Texas) are only waiting for an opportunity to leave Texas and seek work in the North, because they have nothing left to live on there. Their congregations can no longer support them. Only of Pastor Bohnenberger in Galveston is it said that he is apparently well and in full activity. In that latter city, however, no church service is held any more except in the Catholic church and in the German Evangelical Lutheran church. In Texas even the teachers must join the army (of the Confederates) if the number of their schoolchildren falls below 20. The Texas Synod was unable to meet last year on account of the disturbances of war. Of conditions in New Orleans the correspondent draws a very gloomy picture. He writes: "When the North took New Orleans, we certainly thought the religious condition would improve here somewhat. Of the soldiers, of course, one expected nothing much good, for coarseness and licentious conduct have followed even the best armies from time immemorial; but from the military authority, which under the state of siege has everything in its hands, more was expected, frankly speaking, by every Christian-minded person. We had hoped that at least some check would be put on the Sunday desecration prevailing here. But we were greatly deceived. Never before was a courtroom opened on a Sunday, as is now done. On the various days of fasting and prayer, the entire clergy received orders to open their churches for divine worship, and we rightly expected that, in return, the business houses and taverns would be closed. But again we were deceived. In the streets, business houses, and taverns there was no sign of any fast or prayer day. Many a poor man who would gladly have kept the fast and prayer day had to work, if he did not want to lose his place. The churches were indeed opened, but in few of them was a service held, and where one was held, it was very poorly attended. My own church was, to be sure, quite well attended on the first day of fasting, whereupon my congregation was denounced as a Yankee congregation and I myself as a Yankee preacher; indeed, secret threats were even made to burn down the Yankee church sooner or later. That is the real sentiment here, and everything else is a lie. Of any beating of the breast and doing of penance, that the Lord might be gracious to us and might soon grant peace, there is absolutely nothing to be observed here; rather, wickedness and injustice increase more and more, and love grows cold, and instead of doing penance, there is dreadful blaspheming."

Church and state have hitherto in America been altogether separate domains. But since the outbreak of the present civil war, not only have the ministers of the church, for their part, in many instances meddled in affairs of state and shamefully misused the church for political agitation; but the state, too, has for its part begun — not merely to arrest rebellious preachers and to close churches in which rebellion is preached (both of which are indeed entirely right) — but the military power has also taken it upon itself to seize the most important ecclesiastical functions into its own hands and to carry them out through willing instruments appointed by itself. By this the liberty of conscience, religion, and worship, guaranteed by the Constitution sworn to by government and people alike — for the sake of which many Christians emigrated to the United States in the first place — has already been most shamefully violated. We would not be worthy of this liberty, and would help to betray it ourselves, if we did not condemn this conduct of the military power and publicly protest against it. It is not a rebellious disposition but precisely our loyalty that calls upon us to do so. But so that no one may suppose we are here complaining of a chimera existing only in our imagination, we here communicate the following official order, issued from our War Department, though admittedly already indirectly disavowed by our President. It reads as follows: "War Department, Adjutant General's Office, Washington, November 30, 1863. To the commanding Generals in the Departments of Missouri, Tennessee, the Gulf, and to all Generals and other Commanders—