This continues from Part 4b (Table of Contents in Part 3), a series presenting an English translation of Pastor Christian Hochstetter's 1885 496-page book entitled (abbreviated) The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884. —
Some quotes from Chapter 1: Walther's judgment of the emigration (page 4):
The situation had become so bleak for the Lutherans, not only in Prussia but also in Saxony, that Dr. Walther judges concerning it as follows: “There is no question that the emigration, which a large group of Lutheran-believing Christians in Saxony finally decided to emigrate, was not their sin, but rather that for entirely too long they had allowed themselves to be pressured to do many things against their conscience which they considered inescapable, and that in particular the ministers had not waited to be deprived of the offices and exiled because they, in obedience to God, had resisted ungodly regulations.”
A comparison of the Emigration with the early Luther (p. 15):
Just as Luther judged the papacy to be very reasonable in its whole constitution, so did the followers of Stephan think that the difficulty of the new settlement required that everything be placed under the overall direction of one man.And this "show-stopper" revealing God's hand, in this Emigration, allowing evil to happen so that good might come of it (p. 17):
Meanwhile, it was certainly an act of God that this man [Martin Stephan], as long as he worked in public in Dresden, was always seemingly innocent, despite the nasty rumors and despite the investigations that were initiated against him. If he had been exposed at that time, this emigration would undoubtedly have been stopped.Finally, this from Pastor Buenger, who writes the farewell to Germany (page 2):
And so, Luther left Germany… for America, although we will hear that Australia was in the running. —Buenger reports how he held daily morning devotions on the ship and catechized with the children. Arriving near Wittenberg, he began to tell the children the story of the Reformation. A certain deacon … accompanied the emigrants to the castle church and showed them the strange things. They also came to Luther's living room and Buenger wrote in the visitors' book:“On October 22, 1838, this room of the sainted Dr. Luther was visited by several Lutherans emigrating from Saxony to America for the sake of the old Lutheran faith.” [from page 2]
Images of men appearing in Chapter 1:
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| J. F. Buenger — Detlev von. Einsiedel — E.G.W. Keyl — Martin Stephan — O.H. Walther — Benjamin Kurtz |
Image credits: Denkstein p. 214; Wikipedia.de; Polack, Story p. 39; Lutheran Museum; Find-A-Grave; Wikipedia.
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The following is an English translation of C. Hochstetter's Geschichte… by BackToLuther utilizing the DeepL Translator with minor assistance from Dr. Fred Kramer's translation. All hyperlinks, highlighting and red text in square brackets [] are mine. All hyperlinks are active in this embedded window
Chapter 2 follows in Part 6. See below for the above full text in very small print, with internal links disabled. — We quote from Pastor Bryce Winter's notes on his translation:
Pastor Hochstetter (1828-1905) joined the old Missouri Synod in 1866 and was a faithful orthodox Lutheran as this history clearly shows. Church History not only is a great teacher and from it for our blessing we can learn lessons which will help us, together with Scripture to be better able to judge and to have greater wisdom in dealing with the problems of today. If we fail to learn from these lessons we are doomed to destruction as a church body.
Those interested in more details on author Hochstetter's personal life may find this from Mr. David Roepke on the Haseley Family Pages website. —— After the break below, two things follow: (1) more information on my methods of translation, and (2) the full text of Chapter 1 in very small print for search engine searchability and activated FaithLife Reftagger Bible verses, although links to internal bookmarks do not work like the embedded window above. (Chapter 2 follows in Part 6.)
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The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884, Chapter 1
By Christian Hochstetter
Chapter 1
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1. In God’s name let us on our way
His holy Angel lead, we pray,
Like Israel in Egypt-land,
When they fled Pharaoh’s hand.
Lord have mercy.
This hymn, taken from the old Leipzig hymnal no. 675 [verse from Walther’s Hymnal, #330], is the hymn that the Saxon emigrants sang on the first Sunday of their journey, as many of them had set out from Dresden to Bremen with the then candidate Joh. Friedrich Bünger. Since the biography *) published after the death of the blessed Pastor Joh. Bünger contains excerpts from Bünger's diary, the following should be reported from it: [p. 43-47]
“On October 20, 1838 noon, 12:30 PM, was the important moment when our redemption began. After those who had received their passport had boarded the Elbe ship, the Lord Christ was thanked unanimously but in silence for the hour of redemption that had come. And He, the Lord of His Church, was called upon for His fine gracious presence, His protection and guidance on the journey and for the salvation and guidance of those who remained behind. Many curious spectators who had been waiting for several hours for our departure
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*) Short curriculum vitae of the once venerable Pastor J. F. Buenger, described by Dr. C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis 1882, published by F. Dette [Kurzer Lebenslauf des weiland ehrwürdigen Pastor Joh. Friedr. Bünger…]
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followed us with their eyes, probably partly with good wishes, but mostly with curses. As we boarded the train, I heard one distinguished gentleman say to another: "The stupid people of Stephan will all perish; they think that Stephan is their Lord and Saviour, the stupid people!" (Buenger continues in his diary with these words): "Oh how happy we are, that we know our Lord and Saviour better than these people think of us! But that we know Him better than these people think we do, we have to thank the faithful preaching of our dear pastor" — “October 21. Today was Sunday. At 10 o'clock we gathered for our church service. I read the Kyrie, All glory be to God on high etc. and the sermon of Pastor Stephan (from his sermon book). It was very comforting for us that today's Gospel (on the 19th Sunday, after Trinity) began with the words: ‘Then he entered the ship and went over again’.” —
In the following, Bünger reports how he held daily morning devotions on the ship and catechized with the children. Arriving near Wittenberg, he began to tell the children the story of the Reformation. A certain deacon Luther (Buenger adds to his name "a Luther, a descendant of Luther after the flesh, but not a Lutheran.") accompanied the emigrants to the castle church and showed them the strange things. They also came to Luther's living room and Buenger wrote in the visitors' book: "On October 22, 1838, this room of the sainted Dr. Luther visited several Lutherans emigrating from Saxony to America for the sake of the old Lutheran faith". — "October 25. After the morning devotional arrival in Magdeburg, where we visited the magnificent cathedral, where once the expellees for the sake of the unionist Interim witnessed the one faith, but where unified worship [= Prussian Union, “Union”, “United”, United Synod, today’s “Evangelicals”] has been held since 1830. Many monuments were removed. In Magdeburg one also met a small separated Lutheran congregation; about 40 people, according to the diary, stick together and have a furnished prayer room.
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They were also determined to leave Europe as soon as Pastor Grabau, who was then still imprisoned in Heiligenstadt, had received the requested permission to emigrate. —
One can see from these and other reports contained in Buenger’s diary what it was that these Saxon emigrants were up to. Although they still followed Pastor Stephan without thinking badly of him, it was still necessary to preserve the old Lutheran faith, as Buenger in Wittenberg expressly noted! Emigration by sea was rare in Saxony at that time; emigration for religious reasons was something that had never been seen before. This organized emigration, whose head and leader was Pastor Martin Stephan, had something unusual from the beginning. While most emigrants usually leave Germany under the pressure of time and seek above all a good earthly advancement in America, this Saxon emigration society, on the other hand, consisted in many cases of those who suffered great loss of their previous earthly prosperity through emigration; there were not only Saxon weavers and stocking makers among them, but also merchants, physicians, lawyers, civil servants and painters, who were allowed to hope for little external happiness in America. Besides Pastor Stephan, 6 pastors, 8 candidates for the ministry, 1 school teacher and 3 candidates for school teacher had joined the Society. The undersigned, as far as their knowledge was sufficient, professed their sincere commitment to the pure Lutheran faith and declared in paragraph 2 that, after careful consideration, they saw before them the human impossibility of keeping this faith pure and unadulterated in their present homeland, to confess and reproduce in their descendants, they were therefore urged by their conscience to emigrate and seek another country where they could enjoy undisturbed the means of grace that God has decreed for all people for their salvation, in their completeness and purity, and
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preserve them for themselves and their descendants, etc. (Excerpt from biography of Buenger, p. 42) — Already in the summer of 1838 two commissioners had rented 5 ships in Bremen, the wealthy ones paid their assets into a joint credit fund, like the old apostolic Christians, from which not only the passage for all — altogether about 750 souls — was to be paid, but also the necessary land in America was to be bought. The sum of 123,987 Thaler in cash was pooled into this credit fund.
[↑] Although most of these Saxon preachers, who at that time were assigned to Pastor Stephan later blamed themselves severely because, as a result of the lack of clear knowledge, much of the sinfulness of this emigration was also undermined, but the situation had become so bleak for the Lutherans, not only in Prussia but also in Saxony, that Dr. Walther judges concerning it as follows: “There is no question that the emigration, which a large group of Lutheran-believing Christians in Saxony finally decided to emigrate, was not their sin, but rather that they had only allowed themselves to be forced for too long to do many things against their consciences, which they considered inevitable, and that the preachers in particular had not waited to be horrified and expelled from the country for the sake of a resistance against the ungodly regulations of their offices, which God had commanded them to do.” The pure Word of God had become very rare in all of Germany. The year 1817, in which the 300th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation was to be celebrated, had already been used as an opportunity to tear down the dividing walls between the various churches and to initiate the introduction of the so-called “Union”. Although Luther fought against any kind of syncretism to the end, and even at the end of the Marburg religious talks with Zwingli said to him: "You have a different spirit from us," yet now there was a widespread cry that it was no longer necessary to recognize a fundamental difference between Lutheran and Reformed.
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The doctrine of the poor sinner's justification before God by faith in the blood of Christ was ridiculed as an outdated theology of blood, Christ himself was often made only a teacher of wisdom who showed great steadfastness in his death, his divinity was boldly denied, the Holy Spirit was presented as a beautiful enthusiasm in the soul of free men, the Holy Trinity itself was denied.
[↑] In Prussia, the Union of Lutherans and the Reformed, i.e. the event to a new so-called Evangelical Church was introduced by royal cabinet order. As a result, a new Agenda for general use was prescribed in place of the old Lutheran one, a church book in which, for example, the Lutheran confession of the Lord's Supper was denied in select words. The Superintendents and other church leaders, who willingly accepted this Agenda and urged their subordinates to introduce the new books, were presented with orders; at that time it was customary to say that these gentlemen received the Order of the Red Eagle non propter acta, but propter agenda; But those pastors who refused to accept the new Agenda, those who remained faithful to their oath of confession and continued to celebrate Lutheran worship with the congregations that adhered to them, were imprisoned. In Silesia in particular, several churches were taken away from the Lutherans by force of arms. In the Kingdom of Saxony rationalism was much more widespread among preachers and among the people than in the Old Prussian provinces, and although the Union of the Saxon Regional Church was not a union between the Reformed and the Lutherans, it was a union between unbelievers and believers. Although the pastors of the Saxon Regional Church were sworn to the whole Book of Concord without any clauses, no one asked whether this obligation would be fulfilled. One observed that this swearing in was a mere comedy; the most important
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institutions of the state church already aimed at denying the truth in the forms which were used in church functions in order to please the rationalists. Since 1812 an agenda was in use which so miserably watered down Christian doctrine in its forms that it could only give a Lutheran preacher a guilty conscience, and while the unbelieving preachers enjoyed full freedom, a Lutheran-believing preacher could not dare to depart from the rationalist agenda in any way. Dr. Walther reports that although as a pastor in Saxony he had used the old formula of absolution, which did not contain the new Agenda, his unbelieving school teacher had therefore sued him at the Superintendent, and the Superintendent in turn sued the state Consistory, whereupon the pastor had to pay a fine. Finally, Walther was strictly forbidden to use the old absolution formula and was ordered to reimburse the costs incurred by the trial. Likewise, the hymn books and school books were so completely soured by the leaven of rationalism that a believing pastor had to be in deep trouble with his conscience. As Pastor Walther was again tried for the attempt to introduce a truly Christian school reading book and the ignorant local school board already acted against him, the intention of the rationalist opponents was prevented by God's merciful providence, while a believing patron saint (the Minister of State, Count Detlev von Einsiedel) took up the matter and intervened, but Pastor Walther had to pay the costs of the trial once again. Only on the day he emigrated did the congregation reimburse him these costs without being asked, with the explanation that the trial had only been conducted for the sake of their children. — Almost as great was the distress of conscience of the Lutheran laymen in Saxony. Obviously false prophets were to be recognized as their shepherds and pastors, to baptize and confirm their children by them, to have their confessions made by them and to have the Holy Communion served. As often as a child was born to believing parents,
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then the father had to rush to the unbelieving pastor and ask him to choose the one tolerable form for the baptism of the child, which was still on the agenda among five. It also happened in Saxony that a congregation refused in vain to accept an unbelieving school teacher who had been sent to it by the consistory. A battalion of soldiers was then placed in the village, and by this means the acceptance of this teacher was forced. Neither could a congregation in the Saxon state church refuse to accept an unbelieving false preacher. It was impossible that a congregation separating from such a state church institution, which is not united by one faith, least of all by the one true faith, to be a sin! Rather, one might be tempted to ask: Why did not the faithful Lutherans in Saxony, long before they emigrated to America, tear apart these man-made bonds in which they were entangled, and form separate Lutheran congregations, such as exist today in Prussia and also in Saxony? To this Dr. Walther answers in his biography of Buenger [p. 39]: "How gladly the Lutheran-believing preachers and laity would have given everything at that time to obtain permission to unite to form a Lutheran Free Church separated from the deeply corrupted, apostate state church! But at that time it was simply impossible to think of their release for such a purpose. Emigration to a country in which religious freedom reigns was therefore recognized as the only way out of the increasingly unbearable burden of conscience that threatened to suffocate all life of faith within them.” — In itself emigration must be seen as a middle course, which a Christian will not make use of in such a way as to violate his love for his brothers and to leave the fellowship of a Lutheran church or school wantonly. At that time, however, there was no free right of assembly, no prospect at all of the formation of a free church in Germany, so the Prussian Lutherans were also entitled to declare: we would rather sacrifice our homeland
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and leave the King his land if we can only find a sanctuary across the sea! The Breslau Lutherans did wrong to want to intervene against the emigration of their fellow believers when, shortly after the Saxon emigration, many separated people in Prussia also seized the baton and moved to the area of Buffalo, New York, as well as to Wisconsin.
As great as the darkness was that had fallen upon the land, the Lord still had his 7000 in Saxony, who did not bend their knees before the Baal of the Zeitgeist. In such places, where no believing preacher could be found, the Christians gathered in lay meetings and read from their old edification books. The spiritual hunger and thirst was so great that they often set out on Saturday and walked for miles to hear a Lutheran preacher on Sunday. The private assemblies in which they built each other were often blown apart by royal police [Gendarmen]. But the Lutheran preachers, who had a large influx from other parishes, were looked upon with envy and persecuted by their superiors. The extensive congregation in Frohna, in the Mulde valley, where the pastor was W. Keyl, resembling a green oasis in the desert, many souls were awakened by his ministry and strengthened in faith. The burning zeal of Pastor Keyl could only arouse hatred among the rationalists, and when he claimed that the Lutherans in Saxony were in the right, when they also wanted to have public preaching, and not only right baptism, but also the Lord's Supper pure and unadulterated according to the Lutheran symbols, he was answered that he was not bound to the letter, but only by the spirit of the Confessions! Pastor Keyl thought that he wished to see the book with the white pages, which contains nothing but the spirit of the symbols! One could now well see that the freedom and independence of the Lutheran Church was at stake when it says: "The spirit is enough! It is not necessary to speak in one way!"
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Only where the commitment to the Lutheran Confessions is taken fully seriously are the rights of congregations seeking Lutheran preaching and pastoral care protected. Where there were still truly Lutheran preachers, as was the case in the Mulde Valley, they enjoyed the more love and trust in their congregations, the more they were hated by the world. The largest following among those who sighed for redemption from the bonds of unbelief was found by Pastor Martin Stephan in Dresden.
[↑] Stephan was for some time a pastor of the Bohemian parish at St. John's Church in the Pirna suburb. Born on August 13, 1777 in Stramberg in Moravia, he was brought up as a Christian by poor but pious parents. During his stay in Breslau, he became known as a linen weaver, together with the noble deacon and professor Scheibel, and the Christians there helped Stephan to enter the grammar school and from there to attend the universities of Halle and Leipzig. In 1809 he first became the pastor of a Lutheran parish in Haber in Bohemia, but after a year's time he followed a call to the Bohemian parish in Dresden. "The less the Word of God appeared in the other churches of Dresden at that time, the faster Stephan's church filled up with the souls there eager for salvation, for Stephan really preached the Gospel, and he did so on the basis of his own experience." In his small and unadorned church he had German sermon at 7 o'clock in the morning and then Bohemian sermon at 10 o'clock. Since he was only allowed to hold Holy Communion in the Bohemian service, his German listeners often came to the Bohemian sermon, which was followed by the consecration and administering of the sacrament in German. — Stephan had nothing of the arts of worldly eloquence, at least he did not use them. Hardly moving a hand — he simply presented God's advice on man’s salvation, emphasizing the spirituality and strictness of the law and the forlornness of every human being by nature, as well as the richness of grace of the Gospel and the certain
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help that every sinner could find with Christ. Whoever once listened to him, if he was not filled with the mocking spirit, felt deeply moved in his innermost being, without really knowing how it was happening. — In his sermons Stephan did not try so much to work on people's emotions as on their consciences. In doing so, his significant knowledge of human nature and knowledge of the human heart was a great asset to him. There could be no question that Stephan's intention was to cause rapturous emotions through his sermons. Whoever overcame himself to choose him and to seek counsel and comfort from him, — as a rule, found the most proven advice and true comfort. It was a fact so well known and recognized even by Stephan's opponents among the faithful pastors of the country, that the most helpless and distressed souls who turned to them, ultimately pointed to Stephan himself as a man who, if anyone could, would help them. Not only his regular listeners, but also some of the preachers who had been encouraged by him to give a zealous testimony, saw in Stephan their chief shepherd. The rarer such a man was, and the more the world became aware of him, as a dangerous man who had to be stopped at the first opportunity, the more unlimited was the veneration with which many Christians clung to him. — The pitiable man could not bear such a position. Rumors soon began to circulate that strongly suspected his way of life. Stephan had to answer for his actions, but since he emerged innocent from all investigations, the nasty rumors about Stephan were considered mere slander, which came only out of aversion against his teaching. For the sake of the latter, and for the sake of private meetings held in the parsonage with open doors, with singing and prayer, he was severely attacked as the founder of a new rapturous sect as early as 1821. Stephan replied to this in the national newspaper of the Germans, among other things, as follows: "I belong to neither an
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old or a new sect; I hate all sectarianism and enthusiasm: I am an Evangelical Lutheran preacher and preach the Word of God as it is written in the Bible. I build my church on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, where Christ is the cornerstone. I have and preach the apostolic religion that Luther preached so purely and courageously — Law and Gospel, the knowledge of sin and the knowledge of grace in Christ — I preach faith in Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, and in his reconciliation for the sin of the world completed on the cross. I have no particular religious opinion — I do not preach in a miraculous, mystical sense, but in the sense of our pious ancestors — my religion is neither above nor below the Bible, but in the Bible; it leads to Christ and receives from him." In the following, he still resists the spiteful omissions that are made about his church, as if it were in a state of rapturous debauchery. — [↑] As foolish as these attacks were on the part of the unbelievers, the idolatrous veneration with which even talented preachers, such as W. Keyl, Hermann Walther and others clung to Stephan, already expressed a pernicious influence. The sainted Pastor Keyl subsequently confessed that from the time when he joined so closely with Pastor Stephan, he gradually got into a legalistic, dominating pastoral activity. "Unfortunately," writes Pastor Keyl, "I have caused many to make all kinds of harmful prejudices against true Christianity; I have often made the audience feel more bitter than convinced; I have made them feel the burden of sin more than the desire for God's grace. I did not always present repentance to God, faith in Christianity, new obedience, steadfastness to the end in the proper relationship, not clearly enough as the sole fruit of grace, and often in such a way that the thought could easily arise that it was impossible to live in such a way." Although it was not hidden from Pastor Keyl at the beginning that Stephan often let his obstinacy run its course, and even became angry about insignificant things, he was moved
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more and more to put his trust in Pastor Stephan anew by the accusations as if he was causing separation and annoyance when he and his church held back from Stephan; "Yes," he says, "I committed the folly of asking him for forgiveness in the most humble terms. The well-known Pastor Keyl, in deep pain, indicated a major error from which this blind dreaming and wretched man-slavery among Stephan's followers was derived, saying: "The delusion was growing that no one could find the right path to heaven and stay there without special counsel from his pastor." *) Without being able to prove a conspicuous error, Stephan had nevertheless taken a wrong direction with regard to the doctrine of the preaching ministry; since he understood it to mean the preaching ministry in the strict sense, usually called the pastoral office, it is obviously wrong to consider it a special means of grace. It is all the more striking that in the above-mentioned emigration order, under Paragraph 2, one finds the sentence that the means of grace which one wishes to preserve for oneself and one's descendants include first and foremost: the ministry of reconciliation in its entirety, and with undiminished freedom; — only after this is the full proclamation of the Word and the pure sacrament listed. Since in this case Stephan was considered the last light of the world and the only remaining pillar of the Church, the madness easily took hold, as if only the preachers associated with Stephan were lawful and orthodox pastors, as if the true Church was bound to Stephan. Since he had to come into conflict with the symbolic books and Dr. Luther's writings, Stephan would, when such a case arose, tell his followers that they had to understand it differently, for Luther had explained it more clearly in other places,
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*) From: Life and Work of the Venerable E. G. Wilh. Keyl, by J. F. Köstering, St. Louis, Mo., Luth. Konkordiaverlag [CPH] 1882.
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or: this is not suitable for our time, which is why the saying was also familiar to him, which to this day, in order to eliminate Luther, is common among the Romanizing Lutherans: Luther must be translated from his time into ours. — One is now tempted to believe that whoever was so closely associated with Stephan at that time could not have been a true Christian who carried his soul in his hands. However, it was precisely the very first concern and willingness to give everything for the salvation of the soul that persuaded Keyl, Bünger and many others to follow Stephan to America. It was noticed that Stephan gave at least a bad appearance, but unfortunately the believers (as Dr. Walther writes) were not accustomed to judge everything unyieldingly according to the written Word of God. For more than 20 years Stephan had, as it seemed, been the only last witness for the Lutheran truth in Saxony, but now he was not what he used to be, because he did not avoid the evil appearance (contrary to 1 Thess. 5:22), and the closer the time of emigration came, the more often anxious doubts about Stephan took hold of his friends. A candidate who was also attached to him withdrew the trust he had placed in him; but when this candidate was suddenly paralyzed in all his limbs by a stroke, this circumstance was exploited by Stephan, as if a divine punishment had to be seen in this illness. [↑] The emigration was planned by Stephan for a long time. Already when Prof. B. Kurtz [1795–1865] [pic] from Gettysburg traveled through Germany in the 1820’s, Stephan had spoken with him about the possibility of a resettlement to America, but it was not until the thirties that Stephan initiated those closer to him into his plan. Around Pentecost 1836, a special meeting was held at Stephan's home in Dresden, where the conditions of the state church were discussed in detail and found so hopeless that it was declared that the move to another country, where the Church enjoyed full religious freedom, was an
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urgent necessity. When Australia was weighed against America, the latter was chosen as the target.
From that time on, all the necessary arrangements were made quietly, only a jolt was needed and they were ready to go. Stephan said he was still waiting for a sign from God, and when he was picked up by the police in the late summer of 1838, and soon afterwards suspended from his office, he sent word to all those connected with him that the hour had come for departure, and that anyone who wanted to save his soul should prepare to leave. Also the lust for power, which came to light in such excessive demands (for those who did not want to go along with him were suspected), was put right by his followers. So Stephan was able to go one step further during the sea voyage and persuade his shipping company that, since there must be a center from which light and justice emanate, a bishop must be chosen for the entire emigration community. In doing so, he initially testified that he did not want to be a bishop in America, but only advisor to the bishop. But there had to be someone who would take the reins into his hand. On the Mississippi, however, as one approached the city of St. Louis, which was to be the meeting place, a special act of homage was also drawn up and signed by all the shipping companies with few exceptions. Through this document the undersigned dedicated themselves with heart and life to their "God-given"(?) bishop. The sainted Pastor Keyl later confessed, suffering from much suffering, that he had faithfully helped in his blindness that his fellow travellers agreed to this election of Stephan as their bishop and took the blasphemous oath demanded by Stephan, in which they not only vowed unconditional obedience to Stephan in all church and communal affairs, that they even wanted to beware of all suspicious thoughts rising against Stephan in them, but also promised to live, suffer and die in the episcopal constitution initiated by Stephan.
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Even in public church prayers from now on the "Bishop" was remembered. Just as Luther judged the papacy to be very reasonable in its whole constitution, so did the followers of Stephan think that the difficulty of the new settlement required that everything be placed under the overall direction of one man. Christians of weak faith find it easier to be attached to one person and to external and internal experiences than to keep their faith completely to the Word. — However, there was not much of the desired blessing that submissiveness to Stephan would bring. It was a sad experience that one of the five emigrant ships, the Amalia, was buried in the waters of the sea. The other four ships arrived in the port of New Orleans in December 1838 and January 1839 after a stormy voyage. Those who had gathered in St. Louis enjoyed the hospitality of an English congregation, [Episcopals] which gave them the use of its church for three years. The new Bishop Stephan, however, tried to preserve his dignity through noble seclusion, had an episcopal church order worked out under his leadership and lived at a high level. He squandered $4,000 in a short time. — [↑] And since the credit [or: common] treasury was running out, it was finally found necessary to follow Stephan's overstretched plans to the extent that he bought land 112 miles away from St. Louis, on the Mississippi, namely 4440 acres. Although the choice was not a good one, this land offered an excellent landing place near today's Wittenberg in Perry County, Missouri. After workers were sent there to erect some huts, Stephan himself, accompanied by Pastor Hermann Walther and some confidants, left for this location in April 1839. He wanted to live and reign there closed from the outside world according to his own despotism. According to his instructions, no one was to visit him there, unless he had first asked Stephan or had been called. They were also to build a palace for him there according to his own wishes
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while the settlers had to make do in miserable camps and under tents. It is still reported today, in praise of divine protection at that time, that despite the many snakes that appeared everywhere from the newly broken ground, both large and small, they were spared the bite of the vipers. The people sent themselves into great privations, but the progress of the new settlement, which was to be built on as a communal economy, was not a prosperous one. According to Stephan's foolish orders, the people had to spend their time with roads and meadows, the most necessary work was missed and the outbreak of disease carried many off, since the small shelter did not provide sufficient protection. A great tabernacle [Laubhütte] had been erected for the service, but Stephan, not yet satisfied with all this, once exclaimed from the pulpit: "Things are bad with your church, and what is worse, your bishop must live in a pigsty." Not long ago, in the Hannover Zeitblatt für kirchliche Angelegenheiten [Journal of Ecclesiastical Affairs], the Missouri Synod was called a colony of Germany, and it was reproachfully concluded that the colony now considered itself strong enough to rebel against its German mother church (the state church?). Meanwhile, through this emigration the ties between the Saxon state church and the Lutherans settled in the American backwoods were thoroughly severed from the beginning. The Saxon emigrants had not left under wishes of happiness and blessings, as it happened with a Hermannsburg missionary colony when it set off on a journey to Africa. This Saxon emigration was also not the work of a prince. The noble King of Sweden, Gustav Adolph, had once drawn up great colonization plans for American settlements, but he did not see them carried out. Nevertheless, the first Swedes settled on the Delaware River in 1637, where Wilmington and Philadelphia now stand. Their pastor John Campanius translated Luther's catechism into the language of the Indians. Only 200 years later this
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emigration took place, which was soon called a great fanaticism [Schwärmerei] not only in Germany but also within its own members, as soon as the castles in the air, which some had dreamed of, collapsed. Certainly the moral constraint with which Stephan burdened his followers must be abhorred. A time of disappointment had to come for the souls who had blindly confided in this man. Meanwhile, it was certainly an act of God that this man, as long as he worked in public in Dresden, was always seemingly innocent, despite the nasty rumors and despite the investigations that were initiated against him. If he had been exposed at that time, this emigration would undoubtedly have been stopped. God's great patience allowed Stephan to succeed until the settlement had taken root. Had he been allowed to settle in America, a monastic, closed communal economy would have been established under his rule, as several of these countries exist for this purpose and gradually wither away in their selfish, separatist activities. But it was to turn out quite differently from what Stephan had thought for himself. The sainted Pastor Keyl also writes in his diary that under God's doom, Stephan had to come all the way to America, because it was here that his sins and follies were revealed much more quickly than if he had stayed in Dresden. No sooner had he settled in Perry County than the tide turned! A turn of events had to come, for although Stephan and his peers did not find what they had set out for themselves, this America was to become a refuge for the faithful sons of the Reformation, and a new life of faith was to be established in the Lutheran Church, while in Germany the Lutheran Church was decaying more and more and was going to its grave. — Almost at the same time that the man was born whom God intended to be the Reformer of the Church in the old world, America was discovered in 1492; and in this nineteenth century, America was to open the gates to the Church of the Reformation, which in Europe is as in the dungeons.
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Spiritually, the Saxons who immigrated to Missouri were to set up their tents in all North American states after several decades! God alone knows the multitudes of those who first entered this land as confused sheep, but who were now, through the ministry of purely Lutheran pastors, incorporated into the congregations of the Missouri Synod, led to the knowledge of the truth and to life from God. Stephan intended to make it evil, “but God meant it unto good” [Joseph to his brothers, Gen. 50:20], for God has chosen the despised, and no one shall snatch His elect from His hand!
Chapter 2 follows in Part 6.
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