# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S90
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

90	The Grief of the Church in Hesse-Darmstadt.

3) God's plan of salvation rests. On account of this clear, right, and good testimony he was denounced by a card-playing companion of the false teacher. He then also found friends who took up his cause. But his just right, as against that false teacher, has to this day still not been upheld by the higher authorities. We have no church discipline, and so this false teacher is free to go on confusing minds with his unparalleled ignorant assertions.

Meanwhile the gentlemen of the church authority often feel quite strange about it. They had forbidden a pastor to kneel while praying. The church papers rebuked this, the Freimund among them. There we read, in the General Church Gazette that is co-edited by two members of the Consistory, that it was not true that the Consistory had done this. But this newspaper has not only lied — the Consistory continues to forbid the pastors to kneel, and to disregard all appeals to Holy Scripture.

And here too they feel quite strange about it. The demand for church discipline is becoming ever more active. Here and there it is practiced. Investigations are begun, and it is found that the pastors appeal to the old, legally valid church orders — and are right to do so. For this reason an ordinance has been issued that no one may introduce outdated forms of church discipline without special permission from the higher authority. Now this is a strange business. No one knows at all what is outdated and what is not. The more rationalistic the predecessor in office was, the more good things his believing successor finds to be "outdated," and the more disgraceful things he finds still in practice. So one may well say:

Pure doctrine — outdated,

Admonition of drunkards — outdated,

Admonition of fornicators — outdated,

Admonition for Sabbath-breaking — outdated,

and so forth. So it goes here too. Exempla sunt odiosa, that is, examples are not welcome to hear. We know of several such and will for the present pass over them in silence.

The petitions from church societies, and especially from ordained pastors, against these abuses came in so frequently that they were filed away unheeded among the records. Yet in the end people did not keep silent. In particular, complaints multiplied at church visitations. There the pastors must give a report on the conduct of their office, on the congregation, on friend and foe of their ministry. Particular questions are put to them, and at the end they are still allowed to voice their wishes. Then it increasingly happened that the pastors named the state hymnbook and the Baden Catechism as the worst enemies of their ministry, and that, instead of demanding better positions or a raise as before, they set aside worldly concerns and desired instead the removal of these enemies. These pious wishes rose up like armored men on the shore of Egypt. So a lid was made to cover them over. Whoever says anything against the hymnbook or the Baden Catechism receives a reprimand and fines.