# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S95
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church-Historical Items of the Day.	95

appeared in the "Missionary," the "Standard" now gave in full, and from this it became clear that "Peter" was a hidden friend of "Lehre und Wehre." The passage omitted in the "Missionary" and now published in the "Standard" was, namely, what gave the key to the whole. The entire thing was nothing but a good-natured parody of the "Observer." The "Missionary," however, seems to have taken the matter seriously and to have regarded the key-giving passage merely as an inconvenient episode. At least the editor takes this into account, declaring that not only "Peter," who belongs to our school, but also many others lament the direction "Lehre und Wehre" has taken, that the spirit of our monthly has not improved, and that its judgments are not only exceedingly unloving but at times wholly one-sided and downright untrue. Since the editor, through his own grievous blunder, has already punished himself more severely than we, by virtue of the love which by God's grace dwells in us, could wish upon him, we will suppress all counter-remarks against the anathema pronounced upon our journal, and leave it to him to reflect upon the nemesis which he has himself conjured up against himself.

The Latest Nonsense in the Field of Prophetic Speculation. — The Lutheran Observer reports the content of two lectures recently given by Rev. F. E. Pitts of Nashville, Tenn., in which he declares that the fifth great kingdom of Daniel, the stone in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and the son of the woman in the twelfth chapter of Revelation are the American nation, and that the last great battle of Armageddon will be fought in the Mississippi Valley, namely by the United States and France on the one side, and Russia together with the rest of Europe (except France) on the other, before the year 1878. This is supposed to have been prophesied by St. John, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah. Since this view, however utterly mad, flatters American national pride, and is said to have been delivered before 250,000 hearers, especially in the South, it is to be expected that it will take root in many minds. It has already been praised by newspapers, and even the Observer, which has recently taken the whim to dabble in prophetic theology, seems to take an inward pleasure in it, without quite knowing where it stands, since it devotes a page and a half of its long columns to this deranged fancy-reading and its attempted grounding in passages of Holy Scripture, without so much as uttering a single word of rejection. Whoever will not be guided by the heavenly lodestar of the clear Word of God and the pure faith of the Church falls into the whirlpool of dreamy speculation and takes the figments of his excited imagination for the truth. Because they considered themselves wise, they have become fools! — S.

II. Abroad.

Popish Impudence. As is well known, the Mass is quite correctly called, in the Heidelberg Catechism, an "accursed idolatry." In 1857 the Reformed preacher Gillet in Breslau issued a new edition of this catechism and, naturally, included this passage as well. Thereupon the prince-bishop Dr. Heinrich has recently sued Pastor Gillet before the royal state's attorney for alleged blasphemy, and when that authority declared the matter already barred by the statute of limitations, Dr. Heinrich turned, on that account, to the Minister of Culture!

German Conferencing. Concerning the conference at Rothenmoor on the 18th and 19th of August last year, a report is found in Räthjen's Village Church Gazette for December. It states that, first, the question was debated: Who is a heretic? Result: "No agreement was reached. One person thought it unfruitful to argue at length over general questions; that, at bottom, it was really a matter of specific issues of the day." So they moved on to the (second) question: "What position should the Lutheran territorial churches take toward the struggle of the Church in Prussia against the Union?" Result: "No conclusion was reached, because the facts were understood differently." The following theses: "1. Has the Holy Spirit, in Scripture, accommodated himself to our language, or does he speak his own language, to which we must conform ours? 2. How far does the Law hold in the New Covenant?" — these, it is said, "were discussed less thoroughly, and of them we say nothing further here." Finally the question of chiliasm was debated. Result: "Revelation 20 was applied quite variously, depending on differing principles of interpretation. Yet there seemed to be agreement in rejecting the chiliasm of Professor Hofmann and of Baumgarten, as well as that which Pastor Löhe set forth in a well-known sermon." Räthjen nevertheless concludes: "All no doubt took away some stimulus from the conference, and though people parted rather widely apart, it did not happen in the way one reads about it in the newspapers. In lively conversation there is no lack of thoughtless words and misunderstandings; nor should one demand of conferences that everyone at once agree in their expressions (!). It is enough if one learns to understand another more and more." (Cf. Augsburg Confession, Art. 7!) "At bottom we were, after all, very much of one mind, and in seeking a yet deeper unity, it naturally had to come to a broth-