%20blurred.jpg "Prof. Ludwig Fuerbringer (from DL 1924, p. 233)") |
| L. Fuerbringer (c. 1924) |
[by Prof. Ludwig Fürbringer]
It was in August of the year 1844 that C. F. W. Walther, then “pastor of the German Evangelical Lutheran congregation of Unaltered Augsburg Confession at St. Louis, Mo.” wrote the preliminary notes on the cause, purpose and contents of the paper which he intended to publish “in connection with several of his fellow ministers and believers in Missouri and Illinois” under the title “Der Lutheraner.” The first number bore the date “September 7, 1844,” and was printed by Weber and Olshausen in St. Louis. This was an act of which Walther himself, with his associates, probably had little idea of the importance and scope, but which seems all the greater when we consider the circumstances and the situation in which our fathers then found themselves. They had been in this country only five and a half years. They had had to go through the most severe external and internal hardships and temptations, as everyone who knows even a little of the history of the Saxon emigration of 1838 and 1839 knows. They were unknown, underestimated, despised, slandered. But just as they were intent on founding a higher educational institution right at the beginning, announcing the establishment of such in August 1839 and opening it on December 9 of the same year — just eighty years ago — so too they soon recognized the profitability and necessity of drawing the printing press into the service of the church and thereby creating a further path for the testimony of truth which they could and wanted to bear. One need only read the first Foreword to see how clearly and sharply Walther, the man of leadership, organization and drive, recognized and articulated the task of the new paper. And so the “Lutheraner” went out into the world and has now gone out 75 years, becoming the oldest unchanged church paper of the Lutheran Church in this country. It still has the same resolute Lutheran standpoint as in 1844, still carries the same motto:
God's Word and Luther's doctrine
Shall not perish now or evermore,
is still published by the same circle, still appears in the same city of St. Louis. It has grown old, but not obsolete, but fresh and young like the truth it professes. And it will continue its way and bear its testimony as long as it pleases the Lord of the Church.
For three years Walther published the “Lutheraner” as a private enterprise, and also, as it seems, took care of most of the external business connected with it; at least the orders for the paper were also placed by him. The ministers and fellow believers who contributed to the paper were the pastors and former candidates Löber, Keyl, Brohm, Bünger, Schieferdecker and Fürbringer who had emigrated with him. They were soon joined by some of Löhe's sendlings: Sihler, Crämer and Lochner. Then, in May 1847, mainly as a result of the publication of the “Lutheraner”, our synod was established. Walther immediately offered the “Lutheraner” to it, the synod accepted it with joy, and from the first number of the fourth volume (September 8, 1847) the “Lutheraner” bears under its main title the further statement: “Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states", as it still bears this statement at its head today. It thus became the first synodical organ. Walther himself was appointed editor by the Synod, and the editorship was entrusted to Pastor J. F. Bünger and Mr. F. W. Barthel, both residents of St. Louis. The “Lutheraner” was printed at that time by Arthur Olshausen, the publisher of the political paper “Anzeiger des Westens"; from No. 20 of the sixth volume on (May 28, 1850) by Moritz Niedner; No. 9 of the 11th volume (December 19, 1854) names the “Druckerei der ev.-luth. Synode von Missouri, Ohio und andern Staaten” as the place of printing, No. 19 of the 14th volume (May 4, 1858) the “Synodaldruckerei von Aug. Wiebusch und Sohn". So already at that time, as a result of a certain agreement, our synod had a kind of synodical printing office of its own, although the full execution of this plan did not take place until later.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments only accepted when directly related to the post.