Where denial of God leads – Der Lutheraner 1851

      160 years ago, in 1851, the German American Missourians were well aware of the effects of Socialism.  And some years later, Walther himself would deliver the definitive series of lectures on this.  But on the heels of the failed 1848 revolution in Germany, an unknown contributing pastor sent in a short blurb based on the experience of Germany's neighbor, France.  This was one among many articles against atheist radicals in Der Lutheraner about this time, and Walther noted this 35 years later.  From vol. 7 (August 5, 1851), p. 200:

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Where the denial of God finally leads. 

Mr. [Franz] Schmidt does not shy away from praising in his “Free” paper the dreadful lie that there is no God as the highest truth. But where this denial of God finally leads, the history of the French Revolution of the last century shows us by a clear example. In The History of the World by Becker, vol. 12, p. 294, it says about it thus: 

“The slightest sign of a religious act was a death crime ... In Arras, a sixty-year-old person was executed merely because he had prayed.”

 

But this abomination of desolation was still to be eclipsed by the greater of a new worship. The destroyers of Christian ecclesiasticism invented the Cult of Reason, and celebrated it for the first time on Nov. 10, 1793, in the church of Notre-Dame. A woman was driven half-naked as the goddess of reason on a triumphal chariot to the altar, where she was worshipped with hymns and excrescences, then veiled and carried in a solemn procession on an armchair entwined with oak leaves into the convent. [Pierre Gaspard] Chaumette begins his address: 

 

“Fanaticism [i.e. true religion] has run away; to reason, to truth, to justice it asked its place, leaving its squinting eyes that could no longer bear the glare of the light. We took possession of the temples he left and gave them a new purpose. For the first time the people of Paris appeared today in those Gothic vaults, which for so many centuries had repeated the voice of error and at last sounded the call of truth. There we have sacrificed freedom, equality, nature. Not vain images, but a masterpiece of nature we have chosen to represent nature, and this sacred image has inflamed all our hearts. A single wish, a single prayer rang out from all sides: No more priests, no other gods than those which nature presents to us! Mortals, stop trembling before the impotent flashes of a god whom your imagination created! Acknowledge no other deity than Reason, whose noblest and purest image I present to you.” 

At these words the speaker unveiled his goddess, who was immediately invited to take her seat beside the president, and received from him and the secretaries the fraternal kiss amid loud cheers. In accordance with Chaumette's requests, the Metropolitan Church was given over to the worship of reason, and at the end the whole assembly of legislators set out there to sing in the new temple a hymn of freedom composed by Genier, which concluded with the patriotic call to the heroes of freedom to sanctify terror, so that soon the last slave may follow the last king into the grave.

For several months this farce was repeated not only in Paris but in all the cities of France; the churches became the scenes of the most unworthy performances; young demure girls were forced to attend the same in the company of the most contemptible female persons. The heaviest sacrifice was reserved for the shy beauty; it consisted in presenting the Goddess of Reason in a costume that embarrassed even the Parisian opera dancers. Not infrequently this role came to an unfortunate orphan whose parents had just bled on the scaffold, and several commissariats of the Convent were inventive in refining these shameful feasts for lechery.

The dear reader thus sees that it is no indecency when Der Lutheraner reproaches Mr. Schmidt with his denial of God and seeks only to promote the brutalization, immoralization and dehumanization of mankind on his part, but promotes the fullest, truest truth on its part. For anyone who wants to see, the French Revolution provides the sad proof that with the denial of God, people also lose their moral footing, and finally sink into the deepest abyss of depravity and irrationality. Would that Mr. Schmidt would go into himself; would that he would listen to the voice of his conscience, which will not yet be completely dead in him. We sincerely pity the wretch who is so abandoned by all reason that he dares to deny his God, and who is so blinded by the devil that he blasphemes the Almighty.

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       That same "Revolution" is occurring in America today, whether people want to acknowledge it or not.  The socialist forces certainly know it and are saturating the media with inflammatory "news", and they are rewriting history.  The above history is certainly not taught in American public schools today. —  But the socialists did not fool those Missourians.  It was the Missourian Lutherans, not just C. F. W. Walther, who led the defense of Christianity in the face of those who would destroy it.

An honest Atheist (Der Lutheraner 1852)

      A short blurb appeared in Der Lutheraner that caught my eye – it was about Atheists, certainly a topic for our day and in our world.  But what would they say about Atheists?  As I read into the narrative, I found that they quoted a certain French doctor de la Mettrie. I am not sure the editor was Walther in this case, as he had been on a trip to Germany recently. But he would have certainly approved of this blurb. From Der Lutheraner, vol. 8 (May 25, 1852, p. 158-159:

The religion of the atheists.

An atheist, or in German a denier of God, is necessarily at the same time an immoral man; if one can call him otherwise a man, since he who strives to extinguish the God-consciousness implanted in him by nature and therefore denies all human dignity, has sunk to the level of an animal. Not all atheists, however, are courageous enough to reveal their actual principles. Most of them, while they deny and blaspheme their creator with a happy mouth, are so cowardly and so hypocritical that they nevertheless try to give themselves the appearance before the people that they are nevertheless thoroughly moral people, on whose words one can certainly rely; even their actions are guided by noble principles. Such hypocritical, cowardly atheists also exist here in St. Louis, unfortunately! in great numbers, and just many of our poor Germans, given over by God to a wrong mind, are often dull-witted enough that they believe the hypocritical talk of such atheists about “morality, nobility, pure motives, good principles etc.”. 

However, there have been atheists who have said straightforwardly what actually their religion is. Most honestly goes out with it among other things the bosom friend of the old critic [Fritzen], the atheistic doctor [Julien Offrayd] de la Mettrie. The same writes e.g. the following:  

“Happiness is the right of every man; he must find it where it is; it belongs to the vicious as well as to the best. The enjoyment of love in its natural (and to the animals distinct) sense, the finest tickling of the senses is our only good, it alone, even without the honor and the applause of the world, makes us happy. To preserve this, the pedant virtue (which pricks every little thing) must not hinder him. It is a figment of the imagination, a brood of art and a foreign plant that does not germinate naturally in our bosom. Remorse, which is so persistent in persecuting us, must be banished from our thoughts, and the uncomfortable conscience, a fruit of the blows and prejudices received in our childhood, must be anesthetized, kept silent, and its mouth shut until it can no longer speak. God is not to be thought of, and that there is no other life is proven; therefore one has nothing to fear but the only being that is in the way of our happiness: the executioner – of course the philosopher must beware of this judge, since he fears nothing else either above or below the earth.” (Traite de la vie heureuse.) 

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      I would be surprised if any of our readers were shocked by de La Mettrie's philosophy, since our world is quite steeped in the "finest tickling of the senses"... in our public portrayal of popular music, art, in broadcast or streamed television, music and flat-screens playing in our public restaurants, even in medical offices, etc.

      As I read the quote from de La Mettrie, and then saw the image of him, I saw a distinct resemblance between him and another Frenchman Fontenelle who dreamed of other worlds besides our world. — These short blurbs from the old Der Lutheraner are encouraging for me, because they were from "the good old days", and yet they faced the same situation as we do today, a world that hates Christianity (John 15:18).  And they relied solely on God's Word as their shield and their fortress.  May we do the same!  Amen!

Can only reading the Bible convert anyone?

      The following short blurb appeared in Der Lutheraner and caused me to rejoice at its testimony by the Old German Missouri Synod.  Ask any LC-MS pastor today the question above and you will at best get an equivocal answer.  Not so by Der Lutheraner, vol. 8 (August 4, 1852) p. 198-199:

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Conversion through reading the Bible.

At the beginning of the 17th century, a Jew named [Christian ben Meir Biberbach] Gerson lived in Recklingshausen in Westphalia. Besides the sin of usury, which completely dominated him, there lived in his heart a bitter enmity against Christianity, which often gave vent to blasphemies against Jesus. He, too, seemed to be under the judgment of hardening, with which the unfortunate Israel has been punished for 1800 years after the rejection and cruel murder of its Messiah. But what happened? Once a poor Christian widow came to the usurer to borrow some money from him against high interest. But she had nothing to pledge for it but a beautiful copy of the New Testament Scriptures in Lutheran translation. Gerson finally accepted the pledge. But when he saw that it was the book of the Christians, an eagerness arose in him to know what foolish things might be written in it. He takes two other Jews with him and reads the holy book with them. At the beginning, all of them spill out terrible blasphemies about what they have read. But Gerson, the deeper he gets into it, becomes more and more restless. He feels emotions in himself that he never felt before. He looks up the passages of the prophets in which, according to the testimony of the evangelists, Jesus of Nazareth is prophesied as the Messiah of the people of Israel and of all the nations of the earth. “There I found,” he himself wrote in a book he later published on the Talmud [Des jüdischen Talmuds fürnehmster Inhalt], “such a light that I have to thank God for it.” He was overcome by truth. He therefore went to Halberstadt, where he took lessons for a year from a godly preacher and was then baptized. But after God had shown him mercy and had so graciously saved him from great hellish darkness, the desire arose in him to become an instrument through which others could also share in this grace. He therefore studied theology in Helmstädt, taught many distinguished persons the Hebrew language, which he understood thoroughly, published several writings to expose the Jewish errors and finally died as a pastor in the principality of Anhalt, September 25, 1627.

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     I would repeat a statement, from a previous blog post, by Prof. Peter Nafzger of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, son of Samuel Nafzger, from his book Towards a Cruciform Theology of Scripture, p. 111): 

"Luther would also refer to Scripture as a ‘means-of-grace-word.’” Nafzger immediately follows this with the comment: “But this was not his normal way of speaking. He usually emphasized the need for the oral proclamation [over reading?] of the Word, as well as Paul’s comment that faith comes through ‘hearing’".

Prof. Nafzger explicitly wants to teach that "hearing" the Word excludes the reading of Scripture. But Merriam-Webster includes the following in its definition of "hearing": "to be generally known or appreciated" which can also be achieved by only reading. Or does Prof. Nafzger think that his book can only be "heard" if it is audibly heard, and not read?

Chrysostom: On Philosophy, and divine things

    

 A very brief blurb was included in the early Der Lutheraner that speaks to our modern times which seeks to know divine things by its own cleverness and great knowledge. From vol. 9 (March 15, 1853), p. 92: 

Philosophy.

To want to know divine things from philosophy is to attack the red-hot iron not with tongs but with fingers.

(Chrysostom.)

There are a lot of burnt fingers on the hands of today's theologians.

Language 2: Learn English! (& keep German) – Walther

           This continues from Part 1. Lest anyone thinks that these German American Lutherans thought themselves too high in their German pedestal, a few months after the exhortation to preserve the German language came a short blurb, surely by editor Walther, that exhorted these Germans to learn English.  However it ended with a more "sacred duty". From Der Lutheraner, vol. 11 (Feb. 13, 1855), p. 103:

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Luther's exhortation to learn to speak English.  

“I do not think much of those,” Luther writes, “who are so fond of only one language and despise all others. For I would gladly raise up such youth and people who could be of use to Christ and speak with the people also in foreign lands” 

(i.e., not only about business matters, as many Christians here [in America], even young immigrants, do not get any further in English); 

“that it may not happen to us as it did to the Waldensians in Bohemia [like Americans!], who have so caught their faith in their own language that they cannot speak intelligibly and clearly with anyone, unless they first learn their language. This is not what the Holy Spirit did in the beginning; He did not wait for all the world to come to Jerusalem and learn the [Hebrew] language, but gave all kinds of tongues for preaching, so that the apostles could speak wherever they went. I would rather follow this example; and it is also right that the youth should practice many languages: who knows how God will use them in time? For this purpose also the schools are endowed.” ("Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdienstes von 1526". Tom. Hal. X, 279.) [“The German Mass and Order of Service”, AE 53, 51-90, ~ p. 57]  

Hereby, however, we by no means want to give the impression to those Germans who put their mother tongue so low in relation to English that they can hardly understand it anymore and even less speak it properly. If a German Lutheran is to learn English in order to be able to serve his neighbors in earthly and spiritual matters, it is of course for his own sake an even more sacred duty to preserve the jewel of the German language. For what language has the treasures of divine scholarship that German has? 

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      Walther gives the last best answer for American Lutherans – know both languages, English and German. And make sure you do not lose the German language! — We see now how Satan worked his purpose through two World Wars – killing the German language, not only in America, but around the world.

Language 1: Preserve the German among our youth (Part 1 of 2)

      Although I have blogged several times regarding the loss of the German language among Missouri Synod Lutherans, another article came to my attention from an unknown author to Der Lutheraner in 1854 that made me pause and reflect even more on this tragedy.  When I correspond with Germans, I invariably let them know how much I envy them because… they know German! … and I don't.  And the following article again points out just how much the American Lutherans have lost in the loss of this language, so much so that it can bring tears to my eyes. — From Der Lutheraner, vol 11, no. 5 (Oct. 24, 1854), p. 34-35: 

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What can we do to preserve the German language among our youth? 

 

Whatever the various opinions and expectations of the future of the German language in America, it is agreed among us that we, German Lutherans, should make every effort to preserve the mother tongue for our children and grandchildren. While the fear of the gradual extinction of German may not be without reason, and the writer of these lines himself shares this fear, we are undoubtedly agreed that we who are alive now must do everything in our power to postpone this calamitous epoch into as distant a future as possible. If there were no other reason for this, it would already be sufficient, because the German language indisputably contains the greatest treasures of Christian, healthy literature [Page 35] that only a people of recent times has to show. I am not, of course, thinking of the German literature of more recent times, which, under God's heavy judgments, has become a canal of apostasy and wickedness of recent times, and should we speak of this, we should only wish that it had never found its way across the sea to America. We have rather in mind the German literature of the old age, namely of the Reformation, to which no other of European Christianity can be placed side by side. What are all the English ascetic writings of [Thomas] Goodwin, [Richard] Baxter, [John] Bunyan, etc., against such a book as Luther's House- and Church Postils or [Christian] Scriver's Treasure of Souls [Seelenschatz]? or what is all the hymnological literature of England against a single old hymnal of the Lutheran Church? If our children forget their mother tongue, the English language in which the Lutheran Church at present has almost no literature, offers them not the poorest substitute for it. And where did the decline of the Lutheran Church in America come from? Did it not come largely from ignorance of the German language, whereby the rising generation fell into the hands of the English churches? The writer of this has heard it himself from the mouth of a grandson of one of the first German Lutheran preachers in America that ignorance of the German language became the cause of his joining the English Episcopal Church.

But what can we do? Without a doubt, we must start with our youth and lay the foundation in school. German Lutheran parents should never speak other than good German with their children in their family circle. Unfortunately, many Germans are the foolish monkeys of foreigners; they think that nothing is decent and distinguished enough if it is not put on an English footing. Understanding Germans should also show a manly sobriety in this and, although far from pedantic German pomposity, should not be ashamed of their German origin, especially in the language. Furthermore, the German language should be cultivated in our congregational schools with even greater care than is necessary in the old fatherland, so that a student learns to speak and write it with ease and the greatest possible elegance and correctness. Of course, a half-stumbling learning of German cannot arouse a preference for German. Furthermore, our pupils should be familiarized at an early age with good samples of German writers of old and new times in a suitable selection. The introduction of good German reading books for schools serves this purpose. I would remind you of Wackernagel's and Sartorius's excellent reading books, as well as the reading book edited by the North German Association, one or the other of which should not be lacking in sufficient supply in any of our schools. In order to acquire a taste for the German language, as well as a skill in reading, it is not sufficient to use only the Bible or Hübner's Histories as reading books. Finally, each of our schools should, wherever possible, have a small, selected school library, from which students could take home a book every week as a reward for their diligence and good behavior. It is hard to believe how happy children are about this, how eagerly they read, how much idleness and spoiling they are protected from, how much their older brothers and sisters, even their parents, enjoy having the beautiful children's stories read to them during the long winter evenings, and how this promotes a close, intimate family life. Praise God! The newer times are becoming richer and richer in good children's writings that can be safely given to children. Some of Schmidt's, Barth's, Stöber's, Schubart's, and above all Redenbacher's writings provide excellent material for a school library; this would gradually be expanded by good travel descriptions, such as the older ones by Harnisch and the newer ones by Grube, or by children's writings on natural history, world history and church history. The children would gladly contribute their cents, which they otherwise easily spend on candy, if they have the prospect of soon getting another new book to read. Attention cannot be drawn seriously enough to the establishment of such school libraries. If there are some passages in some of these books for young people that do not contain proofs, a Christian teacher will know how to make them harmless by correcting them in time and thereby awaken and exercise the gift of examination in the young Christians.

But over and above this, it seems to us that the least means of not extinguishing the love of the German language in our youth is to give them at the same time the most ample opportunity to learn the English language from the bottom up. If one were to try to keep the English language away from the child's field of vision, one would produce the direct opposite of love for the mother tongue. The more unreservedly the children are introduced to the English language, the more soberly they will naturally weigh both languages, and the more thoroughly they become acquainted with both languages, the more joyfully they will prefer the originality of the German language to the English language, which is colorfully adorned with foreign writings [Federn].

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      Concordia Publishing House may be both credited and blamed for the language situation.  It has produced several English translations of Old German Lutheran writings, but it has been culpable for the lack of the same in many cases. When I was born in 1952, the language transformation was largely over and I heard very little of German speaking in our congregation and among my own older relatives.

      The world will point to the great loss of life in the two World Wars of the 20th Century, but I point to the loss of the German language among the Lutherans of America as their greatest lost.  — And that is one of the main reasons for this blog, to bring back the German writings of the fathers of the Old Missouri Synod, from the time before English became dominant.  For it is they, the Missourian German Lutherans, who can be credited for taking us Back To Luther. — In the next Part 2, we hear another exhortation in the same volume (p. 103), but this time it was for the English language.

Walther: Preachers, not servants of men; (Luther's hymn "Curb Pope and Turk")

      There are many references to Luther's most controversial hymn "Curb Pope and Turk" in the Der Lutheraner newspaper through its lifespan.  In a short blurb by editor Walther, we see how this offended the papists in the Reformation century. From Der Lutheraner, vol. 11 (July 3, 1855), p. 182:

[It is possible there is a clerical error in the year 1558 – a search of history seems only to find a "Duke Ernst" who died in 1546]

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Preachers, not servants of men. 

When a papal envoy visited Duke Ernst of Brunswick in 1558 [sic?], the former asked the duke to forbid his court preacher to sing the hymn: “Preserve us, O Lord, by Thy Word, and prevent the murder of the Pope and Turks”. The duke gave the legate the following beautiful Christ-fearing reply: 

“My preacher is not called because I have to tell him what he should sing, teach or do in church; But he is appointed for this purpose, that by God's command and in place of our Lord Christ, he should preach and teach me and all my own what is useful and necessary to know and learn for eternal salvation for one and all, as well as for the very least in the court, and that he should warn me and everyone, no one excepted, against everything that might be harmful and obstructive and detrimental to salvation, so that one may know to beware of it. For this reason, I do not know how to tell or forbid my preacher anything in this piece; if you do not want to go to church because of them, you have the right to stay out.”

Would that some American parishioners would remember this, who are far from being dukes and yet often want to take the liberty of telling and commanding the preacher what he has to teach!

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      When the LC-MS changed the words of Luther's hymn to remove the reference to "Pope and Turk", they became "servants of men" instead of "beautiful Christ-fearing" servants of Christ.

Fick: Luther Book reprinted; Luther, not Th. Paine, "makes us young again, like eagles"

[2021-06-16: added note in red below]

     Previously I have presented perhaps the best popular book ever written on Martin Luther, Pastor Herman Fick's Das Lutherbuch or The Luther Book. I recently ran across Fick's announcement of the second edition in the 1856 Der Lutheraner.  I believe that this book is one of the most popular books ever published by the Old German Missouri Synod, besides the books of Walther.  Walther highly praised it, but we see in this announcement just how popular the book was in the early years of its availability. And this popularity is confirmed by the fact that the 23rd edition was published in 1892. Yet another (final?) edition came out in 1906, over 50 years after its original printing in 1855 or earlier, according to WorldCat. — One may note Fick's reference to Thomas Paine and his manner of life. More will be said about this in the concluding remarks. — From Der Lutheraner, vol. 12 (1855-1856), p. 104:

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Invitation to subscribe 

to the second edition of the

 The Luther Book.

 

Certainly, the dear readers of Der Lutheraner will not be unhappy to hear that the first edition of the Luther Book, which was 2,500 copies strong, is already completely sold out. Praise and thanks be to the Lord that He has given His blessing to it out of undeserved grace, without which all effort is in vain.

The rapid sales of this book prove that the Church has a desire to preserve and renew the memory of the blessed man of God. Partly in order to meet this need, partly to gain a mite for the good of the St. Louis College, a second edition of the Luther Book is being undertaken, which, God willing, will appear very soon, since printing has already begun. And indeed, except for the improvement of the printing errors, the whole will be reprinted in unchanged form. This seemed the most appropriate for several reasons. As much as we realize how desirable it is to improve this booklet, we have refrained from making any changes, because this would make its use as a textbook very difficult. Furthermore, we had doubts whether we would be happier with the infinite richness of the material in the selection. And finally, we considered that with greater detail, there would also have to be an increase in price, which could perhaps be an obstacle to further distribution. Our wish, however, is to make Luther's life story known in the widest circles and to provide the German [now English-speaking] man with such a description of him that everyone can easily acquire it because of its cheapness and easily read through it because of its brevity.

We have already indicated how useful it is for everyone to get to know Luther's life and deeds in more detail. Especially for us in this last sad, gloomy time, in this dull, faithless and loveless age of the world, it is very beneficial. For in Luther we meet a witness of God who joyfully confesses the Word of God, cheerfully despises the wrath of the devil, the Antichrist and the world, suffers and sacrifices everything for the sake of Jesus, and with God's help finally wins the victory. It is a joy to see such a glorious heroic figure in the holy fight for the glory of God. And how did it come about? Through the seed of the divine Word, for it is this alone that produces heroes, confessors, fighters and victors. One feels involuntarily awakened by Luther's life story to draw all the more eagerly from the fountain of salvation of the divine Word, which also fills us with powers of eternal life, makes us young again, like eagles, gives us peace, wisdom and strength, so that we also grow in Him who is the head, according to the measure of the grace bestowed upon us.

Our grateful ancestors called Luther the apostle and prophet of the Germans. — And rightly so. —- For what was advertised to the Germans as Christianity before Luther was a doctrine falsified by the Pope, the ultimate purpose of which was that they had to obey the Pope and pay him, just as the Pope declared the main sum of the commandments to be: Give me money. Luther, on the other hand, purified Christian doctrine from all papist errors, preached the Word of God purely and clearly, and was the instrument through which the glorious consolation of grace, which lies in the Gospel that God brings us salvation by grace for Christ's sake, went out to countless people.

He gave the Bible into the hands of the German people and translated it so faithfully and so successfully that it was rightly said that “the Holy Spirit was particularly pleased to speak in German”. And as the Holy Spirit sanctifies nature by grace in his own, so also in Luther's. What must make him so attractive to every German is, with all his deep knowledge and rich erudition, this original deep German mind, this faithful honest heart, which, transfigured by the spirit of grace, means everything sincerely with God and man, and despite the most violent zeal of anger against the papacy and everything “dishonest,” nevertheless seeks only the honor of God and the salvation of his neighbor. So that he was what his name says, Luther, pure, a purifier [Lauterer], who sought the best of the church full of honesty and well deserves the honorary name: Germany's best son. 

Let us compare all the others who are nowadays imposed on us as liberators and world enlighteners. We are silent here about the wandering Jews and swindlers, whose folly and wickedness have just become obvious to everyone; we are silent about the brain-damaged philosophers, who worship their nonsense as God, trumpet the denial of God for the highest wisdom, and praise sin as the highest virtue. We recall here only Tom Paine, whose writings are still tirelessly recommended to us by certain papers as the source of the highest enlightenment. The latter compares with Luther more or less like Tetzel. With the latter, Paine has his lewd way of life in common. It is known that Paine was addicted to drink, was finally excluded from all better society because of his drunkenness, and became enthusiastic about his literary works through drinking.

Luther, on the other hand, even his enemies must give him credit for a blameless way of life. By God's grace, he has the merit that he zealously fought against the shameful yoke of papist superstition as well as unbelief and freed many from it by bringing them to faith in Jesus and thus to true freedom. May his life, his example and testimony be blessed to bring souls to true freedom, which consists in childlike listening to God's word.

The conditions remain the same. The price of a book is 25 cents. Whoever collects eight subscribers will receive a free copy. Orders may be placed with Mr. Ed. Roschke, care of Rev. Prof. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

H. Fick. [C. J. Herman Fick]

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Thomas Paine

      Since I was not aware that Thomas Paine, the American Revolution activist, was "addicted to drink", I researched this on the Internet.  Wikipedia made no mention of this, and the general consensus of most historians was that all the reports of this were false and only made by a "malicious revengeful spirit", even though it was believed by many.  While I could take these later historians assertions as the truth against Fick's report, yet I have not found that the Missouri Synod Lutherans repeated slanderous histories.  I wonder that these Germans were well aware of all the histories and yet had fuller reports that indeed confirmed Paine's manner of life. I will leave it as uncertain, to a degree, one way or the other.  — But hardly anyone disputes that Thomas Paine was an enemy of the Christian religion. Indeed he was a scoffer of it, which makes him a hero for most "historians" of today, who will make it their business to protect his reputation. [2021-06-16: see Sihler's comment on "Tom Paine" in DL vol. 8, p. 186 col. 1: "…in vain is your effort to revive your idol Tom Paine".]

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      What Christianity needs today is to go Back To Luther.  And Fick's book is the perfect popular book to give the best picture of Martin Luther.  The importance of this book was recognized by the Ohio Synod's Prof. Matthias Loy who translated it into English with the title Life and Deeds of Dr. Martin Luther. — Fick's report of the 1850s as "this last sad, gloomy time, in this dull, faithless and loveless age of the world" certainly fits today's America. While the 500th anniversary of Luther's Reformation has come and gone since 2017, yet Fick's popular book on the man of God, Martin Luther, is the perfect way to go… Back To Luther.