# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S96
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

96	Church-Historical Items of the Day.

-erly struggle. In the end we shall yet have full victory and unity in love," etc. — In fact, when alongside such talk one reads nothing but anathemas against the Prussian Union, the matter gradually becomes truly repugnant. What good is all this outcry against the Union, when in one's own camp one coddles the very same thing? O you old, faithful witnesses of that truth which is never both yes and no, where are you? —

Elberfeld. The following we read in Ehler's Church Gazette of Dec. 1 last year: "Pastor Feldner, after his scruples were quickly and fully resolved, has gone over to our Church. Since the return and admission to the Lutheran Church in Elberfeld is so considerable that a new parish of our Church can be formed there, Pastor Feldner will probably, within a short time, be able to be appointed as pastor of the Lutheran Church in his own former field of labor."

The Osnabrück School Hymnbook, whose first edition raised so great a storm, has now appeared in a second edition — the first being out of print — somewhat, though not substantially, altered. Content with the concession made, all is now quiet.

The Lutheran congregation in Cape Town, South Africa, has recently obtained, from the Hanoverian Consistory, a teacher for its school of about 150 children. The teacher, named Clöver, was to depart on the next Hermannsburg mission ship.

The Jewish Mission. The Saxon Church and School Gazette of December 16 rightly writes that many hold themselves aloof from the Jewish mission on account of the manner in which it is conducted. There it says, among other things: "In many minds there now lives the notion of Israel as the 'noble people'; a notion which the writer of these lines will, to be sure, continue to regard as unevangelical until he is brought to be convinced that it does not conflict with Gal. 3:27f., where the Apostle — who himself could have wished to be accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brethren — expressly testifies: 'For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ; there is neither Jew nor Greek: you are all one in Christ'; nor indeed that such a view conflicts with Rom. 9:6: 'For they are not all Israel who are of Israel.' But be that as it may! If the Lord has something special in store for the brethren of Israel, no true Christian will look askance at it, if He is pleased to be so gracious. But it is questionable to use these things as bait to convert Jews. It already makes a strange impression on this correspondent that Delitzsch, in his warm preface to 'Israel's Way to Glory: Songs of Love Sung in Israel's Heart, by Jul. Sturm' (a garland of songs which can certainly be recommended), calls Israel the apostolic people of the end as of the beginning, and sees in this a cause of the lameness of our missionary activity, because we do not at the same time carry on a mission to the Jews. It caused even greater astonishment that he approvingly cites the word of a Jewess, 'No one can love so fervently, so gratefully, as a convert of our people,' though this was certainly not spoken out of humility. And when it is often said that the fervor of converted Jews must for that very reason be greater than all others, because they above all recognize 'him whom they have pierced,' then I must ask, with a troubled heart: who in our time has more cause for self-accusation for having pierced the Lord — Jews raised up in hatred of Christ, or Christians raised up in the instruction of the Gospel, yet fallen away? To a far higher degree, however, this correspondent had the impression of something unfitting on reading a tract by Pastor Blendinger of Gleisenau in Lower Franconia, Sh'ma Israel. Here too, I say in advance, there is much that is excellent to be read, for both Jews and Christians. But how does the author know that Jesus the Messiah — whom his own people rejected, but whom God has set upon the throne of glory and made an object of veneration for the heathen and their kings — is now willing to reveal himself to his own peculiar people (?) as their King and Lord in grace? For the subordinate clauses the author has supplied the scriptural proof-texts, but has of course omitted them for the main clause. What, further, is one to make of his saying to the Jews: the Church of the Gentiles needs you? To my knowledge, the Church of the Gentiles needs but one Jew, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and him she has, praise be to God. I cannot help myself, when I read such things, from wanting to say: Dear sirs, do not sin against Israel itself. Do not make the 'narrow way' broad for them. God the Lord may indeed have prepared some especially great glory for the converts from Israel (I do not know it, but so be it!); but this I do know, that for them there is no other conversion than for all others. Whoever will not surrender himself to the Lord — I speak foolishly! — for grace or disgrace alike, whoever will not enter the kingdom of God with that same disposition: I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, etc.; and: if I have only Thee, I ask for nothing in heaven or on earth; but whoever wishes to enter with pretensions to some special rank of nobility is not fit for the kingdom of God, and whoever, by such enticements, wishes to call the Jews in certainly means it very well, but thereby makes true repentance hard for them, indeed impossible."