# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1859_S348
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

348	Church-Historical Current Events.

Given the age's inclination toward a healthy or unhealthy middle way, some even among those who stand with us on the substance of the matter have nevertheless taken offense at the form and wording of the article in question in the Evangelical Church Gazette — though it is significant that such misgivings became vocal not before that decree of the Supreme Church Council, but only after it. It is true that the author of that "Protestation"*) — the same man from whom came the trenchant article against the March Revolution, "It Has Happened" (Evangelical Church Gazette, no. 48, of May 6) — a man who ordinarily keeps silence and only in times of crisis breaks forth from his quiet obscurity and lets overflow the mouth of which the heart is full; a man who has passed through heavy trials, "chastened, but not yet killed," as he says of himself in his last letter to the editor — speaks the language of one whom zeal for the house of the Lord consumes; he does not belong to those who wear soft clothing and dwell in the houses of kings, but is a man of the wilderness; he calls things by their names, without any softening or compromise. Yet he has not lost the rein of holy composure, and just as we sent the piece to the press only after the most earnest deliberation before God, so we still believe today that we can stand behind everything said in it.

(To be continued.)

Church-Historical Current Events.

I. America.

St. Louis, Mo. As we learn from the "Missionary," the Synod of Illinois has resolved to undertake the establishment of an English-Lutheran mission in St. Louis, over which the synod members at Springfield are to exercise oversight. The same synod has taken preparatory steps to publish a German-Lutheran church paper for the West. The paper is to be edited by a committee, in conjunction with a similar committee from the Synod of North Illinois.

Pastor Dörfler, who, as is known, separated from the Buffalo Synod on account of his chiliasm and has since reunited with the Iowa Synod, now reports to Löhe about Buffalo — as we see from Löhe's "Reports from and about North America" — among other things as follows: "You will have read the Buffalo slander-sheet on the matter here; from our own account you may form a just judgment for yourselves. Buffalo is dishonest, pursues selfish interests under the appearance of what is right and of pure doctrine, and conceals papistic, hierarchical tendencies under the appearance of an orderly church government; it wanted to swallow us into its belly — that was its 'friendship' — but it has had to let us live. In their congregations they rule like popes. If I had not experienced it myself, I would not believe it. On top of this, the Buffalo people want to be the best — to be the Church; they disregard everyone who does not think, speak, and act as they do. What fanaticism! This tendency judges itself. Now it sits there, enthroned synodically. An anathema will be the final judgment upon us. And what have we done? Answer: because we hold a different view of the last things than they do; because our congregation here, on account of this tendency — which is being stamped out with fiery zeal within the Buffalo synodical body — has [separated] from

*) As is well known, the recently deceased Dr. Sartorius. L. and W.