J.T. Mueller’s poem for Pieper (1931 Luth. Witness)

      Continuing the series of posts on the tributes for Dr. Franz Pieper after his "going home" on June 3, 1931, it is fitting that the poem of the younger associate, J. T. Mueller, who lived the longest (†  1967) among the erring generation after him, should be published.  Although Mueller did not follow Prof. P. E. Kretzmann in leaving the LC-MS in 1950, and had some weaknesses, yet he maintained Pieper's Biblical, confessional doctrines throughout his lifetime.  As was mentioned in a previous post, he even translated his own English abridgment of Pieper's Christian Dogmatics back into German so that the Missouri Synod could furnish a concise book of orthodox Lutheran teaching to the German theologians after World War II (Bad Boll conferences).  It is sad to say that even though the Allies won the military war against the Germans, yet the modern German theology that battles against orthodoxy and against Pieper/Mueller's teaching is now the norm in all external Christendom. —  But enough of the world and today's LC-MS, I now present Mueller's heartfelt tribute to the "going home" of the "Twentieth Century Luther":

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The Lutheran Witness

Vol. L.              ST. LOUIS, MO., JUNE 23, 1931.            No. 13. (p. 213)

In Memory of Our Teacher Dr. Francis Pieper.

† June 3, 1931. †

He lived immortal; for to him to live

Was solus Christus;1) both by word and pen

His only message was a grand amen

To God’s pure Word; naught else he had to give.

Sola Scriptura2) was the constant source

From which he drew theology divine

And sola gratia3) the matchless mine

Of sinful man’s sole solace and recourse.

Salvamur sola fide.4) So did he

Rest every dogma on the precious blood

Which from Messiah’s wounds on Calvary

Flowed for mankind with universal grace.

With Paul and Luther by the cross he stood

And visioned God in Christ with open face.

St. Louis, Mo. John Theodore Mueller.

1) Christ alone.     2) Scripture alone.   3) Grace alone. 4) We are saved by faith alone.

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Further tributes to Pieper's memory from the Lutheran Witness in 1931 will follow.