# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1859_S158
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

158 Church and Contemporary History.

-gations subscribe to it out of common funds, and thereby make reading the paper possible for their members. I therefore herewith commend this periodical, which will certainly gladly also be obtained through the dispatch office of the Mission Gazette, in the most urgent way."—So far Mr. Lehmann; and similarly the Lutheran consistory in Stade.—

Nassau. Hein accordingly writes to the Lutheran Village Church Gazette, among other things: In the meantime the united territorial bishop Heydenreich has died, and Wilhelmi has come into his place, the very man who made the united territorial catechism. In my farewell sermon I had taken this "Turk's book" to task, and already faced a quarter-year in the penitentiary for it. The new bishop proclaims in his first pastoral letter that under him everyone shall have room. Well then, good luck to you "Lutherans" in the Union, in fellowship with all the fanatics—room for everything, but for JEsus there was no room in the inn. So it stands. God help us, and soon.

The Prussian Union. Concerning the movements within it, the aforementioned paper reports: It will not be without interest to the readers of the Village Church Gazette to go on tracing, as it looks back, the newest transformation of the Union, which stands just at its first beginnings. And not merely because it is the newest—but because at last, after a long, thick fog, one meets with a few streaks of light and a certain tangible something. The hitherto so hazy essence of the Union is becoming more graspable to all who can still grasp anything at all and are willing to. That is to be recognized with thanks by everyone who does not love darkness. To be sure, things proceed, as is natural, slowly and deliberately with the new measures promised in the churchly domain. Rushing things never does any good anywhere. Yet the firstfruits have now appeared. Prof. Stahl, whose task it should have been, as a united Ober-Consistorial-Councillor, to represent Lutheranism, has now most graciously been dismissed from the Ober-Consistorial-Council, because representing it in earnest simply would not do. More than a year ago he himself had already requested his dismissal. Further, two other dismissals from "scientific examining commissions" have just become known. Such a commission exists at every university and has one theological member each, who examines in Hebrew and in religion. The two dismissed are Prof. Hengstenberg in Berlin, who by his own admission has for some years drawn closer to the "Lutheran direction," and Prof. Erbkam in Königsberg. In their place other professors have been installed, of purer or at least less threatening Unionist color, Twesten in Berlin and Sommer in Königsberg. How, indeed, should the Union under the prevailing circumstances any longer post such men as sentinels, or let them stand, who speak ill of the Union? No one appoints a billy-goat as gardener. Every creature has the instinct of self-preservation. Following it, the Union for once acts consistently and honestly. Of other measures we shall hear more in what follows. . . The Lutheran associations within the territorial church in the various provinces have determined the Pomeranian Association as their chief seat, and among their public papers the Pomeranian "Monatsschrift" as their principal organ. Its editor speaks at length about the present situation. He writes: "Already signs may be felt that the time allotted to the associations is measured (so Nathusius already said fourteen years ago). Let them fall, if God allows their falling. The young infant (which one?) no longer needs its nurse now as much as ten years ago."—Of the united church government he complains that with it the associations have "become more and more an object of growing disfavor. The Ober-Consistorial-Council no longer issues general rulings on the general (collective) petitions of the associations. The influential posts are not given to those of confessional bent (!); and it is a public secret that the superintendents now to be appointed must sign a kind of pledge in favor of the Union and are specially bound to uphold the new liturgy. Outstanding confessional personalities have been subjected to special measures. The old Pomeranian liturgy is being treated as altogether done away with, and the united liturgy of 1829 handled as the only valid one. (Indeed? With what touchy zeal the opposite was always insisted on!)—But it grieves us still more sorely that, concerning the measures taken by the church government with regard to individuals,