# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1864_S281
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Literary Notices. 281

manner that "those doctrinal articles, especially the eschatological ones, which have in recent times developed further out of Scripture (?) and in connection with the church's symbol, should receive careful consideration." It is a pity that, through the Heubner edition and now also through the Vetter edition, publishers are being kept from putting out an unaltered reprint of the old Büchner, which would be so desirable. By "unaltered," we naturally mean here only with reference to its dogmatic content.

Recently published by Schäfer and Koradi:

Voices from the House of God. Sermons from the Literary Remains of the Reverend Dr. C. R. Demme, formerly Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran St. Michael's and Zion's Congregation in Philadelphia. 1st Number. — We must confess that we took up these sermons with all the greater anticipation, the more universally we found it testified that the author had been "the greatest German pulpit orator of America." We cannot conceal that this very expression already made us uneasy; but even the expectations with which we nevertheless went to read the sermons have been anything but fulfilled. We can only believe that the compiler, Dr. Mann, intends, through a series of sermons, to illustrate the deceased's course of development, and that he therefore means to give good, genuinely Christian sermons only later. But we would have to enter a protest against this intention, if we are not mistaken about it. In a history of homiletics that might pass, but in a sermon-book meant to be placed in the hands of the people, only purely evangelical sermons ought to be included. The sermons before us, however, are by no means that, even though here and there a genuinely Christian idea is expressed. We wish to substantiate this with only two examples. The second sermon takes as its theme, from Matt. 7:16, "The True Touchstone." Of this it is said that it is "neither a fair-seeming outward conduct, nor a fiery zeal for religion, but solely and alone pious obedience toward the holy commandment of God, and duty." Not to mention that, given the context of the text, it is already wrong to understand the fruits of which the Lord speaks as those of the Christian, rather than those of a "prophet" or teacher, it is still more wrong to make the inner disposition with which a person acts into the criterion for judging persons. For it says, among other things: "If we see a person to whom nothing is more important, nothing more venerable and holy, than his duty... who out of respect for it suppresses his passions, masters his inclinations... who recognizes in its commandment the voice of his Creator, the will of his Father in heaven; who through his faith in God... is animated with zeal to follow, in all his relations, no other law... who does this all the more gladly... because God in Christ is a Father to him... if we see, then, a person in whom religion and virtue... stand joined in this beautiful... bond, that person, and that person alone