# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 01 08_S74
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

from which it was formerly served, it made the offer in the year 1842 to raise the entire pastor's salary by itself, if only it could obtain its own pastor. It received one. Under tremendous exertions it raised what was needed up until 1847. But owing to the hard times that, as is known, weighed upon Upper Silesia in recent years, it has come to the point that now only thirty members altogether are able to contribute, who are supposed to bear the whole burden alone, but cannot, unless the Lord helps. — The congregation at Woiselwitz, near Strehlen, consisting of 567 souls, groans under the enormous debt burden of 7,500 thalers, on which it must pay interest while also covering the pastor's salary and other church needs. It is in complete perplexity, and since various rental incomes, with which it formerly helped itself, have now fallen away, it does not know how it is to go on in the future without brotherly support. — In similar distress is the congregation of Züllichau, already drained dry in the years of persecution, whose 500 souls alone have to bear a debt burden of 3,000 thalers.

Yet, beloved brothers, we fear that by this dry enumeration of such distresses, which repeat themselves monotonously in most of our congregations, we may weary you. We have not wished to name all the congregations, nor, with regard to the congregations named, all their distress. We wish only to point out further that the general church treasury, so often mentioned, to which the pastors are referred with regard to their salary, is formed from the contributions of all the congregations, and has hitherto been able to meet its obligations to some extent only because a few well-to-do congregations, out of love for their poorer sister congregations, raised more than the salaries of their own pastors amounted to. Yet this salary fund is now not merely exhausted, but already in debt to the amount of 500 thalers.

But the little that we have related will suffice to awaken your brotherly sympathy. That our church in Prussia, which had melted down to a mere handful of people, has, in its struggle with the entire power of the state — a great power of Europe — carried off the victory, and has not succumbed to its innumerable financial embarrassments either, but rather has grown from year to year under these hindrances and difficulties, extraordinary for our faith-weary age, so that out of the 14 parish districts with 10,000 souls that we counted in 1841, and out of the 17 parish districts with 16,000 souls of 1844, there have now become 35 parish districts with 27,200 souls — this is manifestly God's work, and our history is one of the signs of the times by which the hidden God wishes to reveal himself to this wicked generation, which only hypocrites and adulterers refuse to heed.

But if we, in our wondrous deliverance and history thus far, are God's work and building in Christ Jesus, should you not wish to become God's fellow-workers? May the Lord incline your hearts to active mercy toward us, your household- and fellow-believers. If you abandon us, so far as it depends on you, to ruin, then days may soon come upon you as well in which you will sigh and say: "This we have done to our brother Joseph, in that he pleaded with us, and we would not hear him: therefore this affliction is now come upon us." But again, if you show mercy to us, then upon you will be fulfilled the word: "He who has mercy on the poor lends to the Lord, and the Lord will repay him again."

Now, dear brothers, we do not fear that you will put us to shame and pass by unmoved before this picture of our distress and want. You will pray for us and with us; you will comfort and counsel us; you will open your generous hand and help us. But whatever comfort, counsel, and generous gifts you wish to extend to us for the sake of the love of Christ, extend it to our Upper Church Consistory in Breslau; it will gratefully accept everything, administer it conscientiously, and also faithfully carry out the special designations that the dear givers might make with regard to individual distresses or congregations. In advance we give thanks for all that your love will do. All that you do for us, who lay with you under the heart of one mother and drank from the breast of one mother — may the Lord, who is called and is a rewarder, remember it for Jesus' sake. He will and does remember it to you in all the distresses that may yet break in upon you and your children — remember it in the last distress, when it shall be most fearful for your heart — remember it, finally, in the resurrection of the righteous on the last day, that you may then hear from the mouth of Jesus the sweet word of grace: "Truly, whatever you have done to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done to me."

We greet you all, who read this our letter of distress, in closing, with the most heartfelt brotherly greeting, and, in spirit, clasp our hands into yours for an eternal covenant upon the passion of Jesus, and commend you to him who can keep you without fault and set you before the presence of his glory, blameless with joy. To him who alone is wise, our God and Savior, be honor and majesty, power and might from eternity to eternity. Amen.

Breslau, October 4, 1848.

The General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia.

Gifts of love for these poor fellow-believers are gladly received, for forwarding to their intended destination, by the writer of the Sonntagsblatt.

(Submitted by Missionary Pastor Baierlein.)

Something about the Native Inhabitants of this Country, and What the Evangelical Lutheran Church is Doing for Them.

III.
The Autumn.

When the devout farmer, according to God's ordinance, has worked the soil in the sweat of his brow, and, in such labor of his calling, the ripening and testing heat of summer has followed upon the budding and hope-filled spring, and finally upon both the proving autumn, then he is accustomed to look back and trace the blessing of God, who has again, according to his promise, crowned his faithfulness to his calling. And even if he finds the neighbor's barn fuller than his own, and sees that it has pleased God to bless the labor of others more visibly and richly than his own, there yet remains for him cause enough to strike up with his whole heart a "Now thank we all our God," etc. — The mission field, too, is a field to be tilled, and its cultivators have received their share as well of the labor and sweat of the farmer, just as they, like him, make it harder for themselves through untimely care, fear, and hope. What that farmer is accustomed to do, let this one also be permitted, namely to look back and to trace the blessing of God.

The field that has been assigned to us for cultivation is small, and by no means has the extent that we would have wished. But the Lord of the field and of the harvest, who assigns to each laborer his day's work, surely knows far better than we ourselves what is fitting to our strength, our diligence, and our faithfulness; therefore we do not complain that our field is small. But that Satan has also visited this small field so abundantly with his weeds — that indeed sometimes wrings from us sighs and complaints.

When we now turn our gaze first to our school in Frankenmuth and Bethany, we do indeed miss many a pupil, boy and girl, whom we loved and for whom we hoped, and whom the father of lies — who will not allow the little children to come to the Lord Jesus and inherit the kingdom of heaven — has, in various ways, with the cooperation of the Methodists, led away. Whether the word of life, so often heard here, will become for them a savor of death unto death, or whether it will one day yet — perhaps in the bitter little hour of death, whose earnestness opens the eyes of many a one, lets him recognize the abyss on which he built so confidently, and causes everything that delusion and lies gave out as rock-solid to vanish — break forth from beneath the rubble that concealed it, and become, to the fleeing life, its only support, to the praying soul its only comfort and light, and a sure staff through the dark valley of death, to the gates of paradise: that is known to God, not to us; but we may hope and pray.