Children's hymn? “Restrain murd’rous Pope and Turk” - Walther on Luther's great hymn

      One of my more popular blog posts has been the one on Luther's “Most Controversial Hymn”, which highlighted that it was a hymn for children. But I was glad to recently find Walther's blurb on Luther's hymn in the 1879 Der Lutheraner, p. 167 (Nov. 1 issue). Precious column space was used by Walther to briefly give another of his sharp counsels for his church body. He wanted to highlight Luther's intentions and purpose for this hymn. Let us listen to both Luther and Walther. (Translation by BackToLuther. All emphasis is in the original, except highlighting which is mine):

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“Keep us, O Lord, by thy Word. 

And restrain the murd’rous Pope and Turk.”

When Luther had this song printed for the first time in 1542 on a special sheet, he gave it the following superscription:

“A Children’s Hymn to Sing Against the Two Archenemies of Christ and His Holy Church, the Pope and the Turks." 

As a subscription, however, the song bore the following address of Luther to the children:   

“Dear Christian children, sing and pray confidently against the two right and greatest arch-enemies of Christ and His members, that God the merciful Father may continue to give peace for the sake of Jesus Christ. Do your best in this, for, alas, there are few poor people who are earnestly concerned about this. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.” 

From this time on, this hymn has been prayed and sung almost daily by the children in the Lutheran city and village schools, mostly on their knees. This children's prayer has been wonderfully answered. The Turks, those bloodhounds who lusted after the blood of Christians and from whose attack Christianity was once not safe for an hour, prayed that children's hymn sick and dying, so that now Christianity, if it only continues to pray against the Turk, is safe from him. But as for the other arch-enemy of Christ and Christianity, the Pope, our “children's hymn” has also put a stop to him at least to such an extent that he can no longer, as he once did, murder Christians who do not want to worship him, as much as he would like to. Cf. Ps. 8:2. W. [Walther]

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      Note well: Even though Walther admits that while murders by the two arch-enemies has decreased, yet he does not call for a change in Luther's words to this hymn, but commends Luther's hymn even today for children, with the words “restrain the murd'rous Pope and Turk”. — Are their any Lutheran children in the world today who pray this prayer, or sing this hymn, as Luther wrote it and intended it, to restrain the Pope and Muslim (Turk)?  I don't think so.  I lay the fault for this tragedy largely at the feet of the LC-MS, proving once again that the “confessional” LC-MS… is not Confessional.