# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1864_S312
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

News of Church History.    312

no other new prayers are necessary in my judgment. You, however, as a military commander, judge quite differently. In your opinion, namely, our prayers do not answer their purpose, and you therefore command me, as the bishop, to introduce in their place new and different prayers that suit you, the military commander, and seem fitting to you; or, in other words, you, the military commander, place yourself in the position of the ecclesiastical authority and attempt to make it your obedient servant. Were I to let this happen quietly and without objection, I would thereby be acknowledging a very dangerous principle and setting an even far worse precedent for the future. Duty and conscience therefore bid me to enter, once and for all, a serious protest against your proceedings toward the Church, and thereby to safeguard the rights of the Church and to uphold its freedom. This freedom of the Church, at least to administer its own internal affairs itself and without any interference from outside, has at all times also been recognized by the state. It is not necessary for me to appeal here to the relevant articles in the Constitution of the United States, which expresses itself clearly and plainly with regard to this point. If you demand of us, in the name of the civil or the military government, that we alter our divine service or our prayer formulas, then our conduct is clearly and unambiguously prescribed by the divine Creator of Church and state, and to that we intend, with God's help, to hold fast — namely to the commandment: "'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.'"

Methodist Humbuggery. In order to rekindle the war fanaticism that here and there is on the point of going out, and to stifle in its rising the awakening longing for the blessings of peace, the "Christian (?) Apologist" of September 26 of this year foists the following, among other things, upon its readers: "In the present struggle it is a matter of fundamental principles, whether Christian civilization or barbarism, whether a free popular government or aristocratic absolutism, is to triumph." — Just as we have no one but the abolitionist sects here to thank for the present horrible war, so they also wish to have the honor of being the cause of its continuation. Oh, how terribly God is now teaching us what fruits of temporal and eternal ruin false doctrine, sectarianism, and religious fanaticism bring upon whole peoples.

The "Lutheran" Wisconsin Synod is a united [unirt] communion; for it accepts, among others, preachers also from the united Supreme Church Council in Prussia, and has these preachers ordained by the united Prussian consistory — before they have even been called by any congregation — against all sound biblical, Lutheran doctrine and practice. These preachers, ordained in the united manner, then serve the Lutheran congregations of the Wisconsin Synod for "five or six years," and thereafter return to their home united Church, to continue officiating as royal Prussian united pastors. Thus the poor Lutheran congregations of the Wisconsin Synod are supplied by their synod with "Lutheran" preachers — that is, led behind the light and deceived. One wonders whether Pastor Harms of Hermannsburg in particular will see through the honesty of this Lutheran (?) synod and of its president, Pastor Bading, and take any pleasure in it. We know from Pastor Harms's own mouth that he admits no united Prussian preacher to the Holy Communion; he must therefore consider it equally unlutheran and unconscionable that a synod wishing to be Lutheran admits such preachers to office in Lutheran congregations. — In the "Appeal" of the united "Berlin Society for German Evangelical Mission in America" it is said as follows: "The individual consistories, in agreement with the reverend Supreme Church Council, grant our messengers, with most gratifying readiness, ordination to the preaching office before their departure, and reserve for them, upon proof of blameless conduct in office for five to six years, appointment in their home province. Through reports submitted annually to the consistory concerned, the connection with the home Church is kept up.