# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 05 31_S77
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never now nor ever pass away."

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 1.

St. Louis, Mo., May 31, 1845.

No. 20.

Terms: The Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at a subscription price of one dollar and twenty-five cents for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay half of this in advance and bear the postage themselves. — In St. Louis, each single issue is sold for six and a quarter cents.

(Contributed by Pastor Keyl.)

Life Story of Dr. Luther.
(Continued.)

On the same day that the Peasants' War came to its end, the 5th of May 1525, Luther and the whole Lutheran Church were plunged into deep mourning by the death of the pious Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, who departed blessedly from this world in his sixty-third year, confessing Christ, and at whose funeral Luther preached two excellent funeral sermons on the comforting article of the resurrection of the flesh, on 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. The electoral dignity now passed to John the Steadfast, who took up the work of the Reformation still more resolutely and zealously, and who also held Luther in high honor.

Luther had already, up to that time, written many excellent things about the estate of marriage, and had shown that it is a divine ordinance permitted to all men, whereas the monastic vows that forbid it are merely human and thus powerless fetters; he had also successfully advised others to break through them with a good conscience. Now he resolved to do this himself, and quickly. In the summer of the year 1525, in his forty-second year, he married the maiden Catharina von Bora (she was twenty-six years old), who two years before had left the convent, having been persuaded by the reading of Luther's writings of the lawfulness of this step.

Luther married in particular at the request of his aged, godly father, and in order to confirm his teaching by deed as well, since he himself found so many faint-hearted souls even amid so great a light of the Gospel. He himself testifies that God led him suddenly and wonderfully into the married state, when he was thinking of quite other things; for, he writes, I feel neither carnal love nor passion, but have a good will toward and delight in the married state, as being God's creature and ordinance. Luther clearly foresaw that his enemies would froth up the poison of their slander over his marriage; indeed, he was well aware that even his best friends would at first disapprove of his plan. Nevertheless, in defiance of the world and the devil, he carried out what he had already declared with firm resolve earlier: that he would surely yet enter the married state, even if he had to be wed on his deathbed. Even though his own friends may have thought it better for Luther to remain unmarried, since otherwise the enemies would be given the best occasion to slander the work of the Reformation, Luther thought otherwise: it was more important to him to strengthen those of weak faith and to confirm by deed the Christian liberty and the truth of the Gospel, than to avoid provoking the blind and hardened, hypocritical enemies, according to Galatians 2:4–5. He writes: "I have also taken a nun in marriage, although I might have refrained and had no special reason to do it, except that I have done it in defiance of the devil and his scaly minions — the great fellows, princes and bishops — who become quite senseless with rage that persons in holy orders should be free. And I would gladly cause still more annoyance, if only I knew of something more that would please God and vex them. — But that some weak souls also take offense at this is not our fault, but the fault of the tyrants who prevent the Gospel from reaching that point and instructing the weak; therefore they must answer for it. Also, when it comes to the point that Christian and divine liberty is to be suppressed or violated, it is that liberty which must be regarded more than the weak. For more depends upon God's Word than upon the whole world." (Luther's Works, Halle edition, X, 963–64.)

Not one of the slanderous and mocking pamphlets that appeared on account of his marriage did Luther consider worthy of a serious answer; it was enough for him that he had a just cause and a good conscience. Luther's more recent opponents likewise only strike up the same old songs on this matter, or else add new lies to them, for to these unclean and unbelieving people nothing is pure, but both their mind and conscience are unclean (Titus 1:15). The most ridiculous and laughable thing, however, is the often-repeated claim that Luther reformed only so that he might be able to marry. Now indeed, if that had been his aim, he could have come to it by a far easier path; he could have spared himself all the struggles that have been spoken of so far, for when the Pope had already offered him a rich bishopric and great sums of money, if only he would keep silent, the Pope would have far more readily allowed him, on that condition, to marry a poor nun.

At the close of this section we wish to take one more look into Luther's marriage and household. In it he strove with all diligence to practice what he taught about it, both by word and in writing, from God's Word, so that as a true bishop he ruled well over his own house (1 Timothy 3:4). He and his wife loved and honored one another heartily. In this marriage God gave them six children — Johannes, Elisabeth, Magdalena, Martinus, Paulus, and Margaretha — three sons and three daughters. Amid his many labors and cares in church affairs, these children gave their father many a happy hour; he loved them most tenderly, raised them faithfully in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, and prayed daily with them, in particular, the Ten Commandments, the Christian Creed, and the Lord's Prayer; but he also often joked with them in a friendly way and became a child among the children. As evidence of this, we cannot help but insert here a letter that Luther wrote to his four-year-old little son, Johannes. It reads as follows:

"Grace and peace in Christ, my heartily beloved little son. I am glad to see that you study well and pray diligently. Continue to do so, my little son, and keep on; when I come home, I will bring you a fine fair. I know of a lovely, delightful garden, where many children go about wearing little golden coats, and gather beautiful apples under the trees, and pears, cherries, plums both yellow and blue; they sing, and jump, and are merry; they also have fine little horses with golden bridles and silver saddles. So I asked the man to whom the garden belongs, whose children these were. And he said: These are the children who love to pray, to learn, and to be pious. Then I said: Dear sir, I too have a son, named little Hans Luther; might he not also come into the garden, so that he too might eat such fine apples and pears, and ride such fine little horses, and play with these children? Then the man said: If he loves to pray and to learn, and is pious, then he too shall come into the garden, and Lippus and Jost as well; and when they all come together, they shall—