# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1859_S130
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

130 Excerpted Communications from This Year's Preface, etc.

Ever since Solomon inclined his heart to other gods and thereby laid the seed of poison in his people, the corruption among them presents the picture of a steady development. It has its risings and its fallings; bright intervals occur; the reforms undertaken under the godly kings are revivals; here and there the people as a whole are also seized by a better spirit, by an enthusiasm for their God — for example under Jehoshaphat, when the Lord had wondrously delivered them from the hand of the peoples of the wilderness; under Hezekiah, when the power of the world-conqueror Asshur broke itself against the walls of Jerusalem. But the ground of the people's consciousness always remained unchanged; their righteousness was like the morning cloud and like the dew that vanishes early; the Lord had to say: "yet the snow lies longer on the rocks in the field when it snows down from Lebanon, and the rain-water does not dry up as soon as my people forget me" — they turned, but not rightly, but were like a deceitful bow. So they carried on until at last the measure of sin was full and the unsparing punishment broke in. After the Lord had for so long had to say: "A stork in the sky knows her appointed times, and the turtledove, the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people does not know the ordinance of the Lord," the time came when the Lord's faithful servants had to lament: "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people."

As with Israel, so it stands with our fatherland. Since the middle of the last century the spirit of apostasy struck root in it, and especially set up its chief seat in its capital city. From Berlin all Germany was made to sin. How Frederick II stood toward Christianity and the Church is well known. In Berlin Voltaire moved in society; from there the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek and the Berlinische Monatsschrift spread their poison abroad. "The Berliners" — that became simply the name for all Christ-hating enlighteners, whether they were Jews or nominal Christians, which by then counted only as an inessential distinction. That God's grace was not yet at an end was made clear by the fact that the punishment came so soon. Prussia had to pay dearly for having given a place within itself to the spirit of darkness that appeared under the glittering name of Enlightenment. Having become hollow within, it was also brought to nothing outwardly. The word was fulfilled in it: "they walked after vanity and became vain," served worthlessness and were therefore brought to nought. It had to serve, under compulsion, those very things into whose spiritual bondage it had voluntarily surrendered itself. In the midst of this misery the Dayspring from on high visited its king. He hearkened to His voice, and salvation followed repentance. Among the people a mighty stirring made itself known, but although many were thoroughly awakened, although from that time the Church entered upon a new stage, the ground of the people's consciousness remained unaltered.