# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1864_S309
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

News of Church History.    309

rendered better service in this field than any one of us." Only of the symbolical writings of the Lutheran Church, it is said, have more copies been sold to preachers in the last five years than in the preceding twenty years. (Kirchenfreund.)

Mission among the Chinese in California. We read the following in the Evangelist: In California there are 50,000 professors of heathenism. They are immigrant Chinese. They have two temples in San Francisco. The Presbyterians and the Baptists have missions among them, which have built churches for them. Also, two converted Chinese are already working as helpers of the missionaries.

The "Lutherische Herold" says in its number of September 24 of this year, in a biographical sketch of the famous mathematician Johann Keppler, among other things the following: "He was deeply grieved by the strife among the Protestants themselves, which often turned only on empty forms, and in which love was so often forgotten. His orthodoxy was called into doubt because he was reluctant to subscribe unconditionally to the Formula of Concord, since, on account of the malediction it contains against those who think otherwise concerning the Lord's Supper, he wished to attach a reservation. This drew upon him many persecutions, and even the Consistory of Stuttgart decided against him. He wrote on this occasion: 'I can put an end to all controversy if I subscribe and except nothing. But it is not given to me to play the hypocrite in matters of faith. I will not share the hatred against those who think differently; my conscience does not allow me to set myself up as a condemning judge of my brethren. I do not condemn my brethren; whether they stand or fall, they are the Lord's and my brethren.'" — Thus can a paper write which has inscribed on its forehead as its motto: God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away now or ever, and which has already repeatedly professed itself bound to the whole Book of Concord, and hence also to the Formula of Concord!

Conflict between a Roman bishop and the military authorities. The "Wahrheitsfreund" of September 21 reports, among other things, the following concerning the arrest, banishment, and subsequent release of Bishop Elder of Natchez, State of Mississippi. When the bishop, in accordance with an order he had received, appeared at the office of the headquarters of Brigadier General Tuttle, "the latter opened the conversation by asking the bishop whether the Catholic Church did not prescribe a prayer for the civil authorities and, if so, whether he made use of this prescribed prayer. The general added to this question that he had been informed that such a prayer existed and that it was customary for it usually to be read during the Holy Mass, but that at present it was being omitted. If the latter were the case, he said, he would regard the omission of such a prayer, under the circumstances now prevailing, as a public act of disloyalty which he could not tolerate. He was now resolved to make a test and to determine who were his friends and who his enemies, and he was minded of necessity to separate the sheep from the goats, etc. Bishop Elder replied to this that in the Roman Missal no such prayer was expressly prescribed by the Church, but that some prayer books in use in the Catholic Church contained a suitable prayer for the civil authorities. After the beginning of the present political troubles he had let these prayers drop and had substituted in their place a general prayer for the authorities of the Confederate States, and indeed for the reason that at that time the community of Natchez had stood under the actual control of the government of the Confederate States. He had continued the use of this prayer for a short time, but had then, while the Confederate troops were still in full and undisturbed possession of Natchez, and almost a whole year before the taking of this city by the troops of the United States, likewise let drop the use of this prayer substituted by him, and had since then used in its place only the 'Litany of All Saints' as a prayer for the restoration of peace between the warring parties. This answer of the bishop seemed to have completely satisfied the general, and the reverend clergymen left the headquarters