Walther on Abortion… in 1871? Infanticide? “religionless state schools”

      The heading for this post is in the form of a question because with all the attention on abortion and abortion rights today, one might think that this practice was not prevalent in the mid-19th century.  But that appears not to be the case, as C. F. W. Walther comments on the current conditions in his time in the 1871 edition of Der Lutheraner, vol. 28, p. 4 [EN]:

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The murder of children in the womb, as almost all newspapers report, has become so common among Americans that Sodom seems like a pious city compared to America (Eze. 16:48, 51). The Illinois state paper, in one of its recent numbers, claims that at least a quarter-million, and probably half a million, children are murdered in the womb every year in the United States. A single female abomination in Boston has confessed that she assisted in 20,000 cases during 17 years. Would it be surprising if the earth were to rise up and America were to sink into the deepest depths? No; it is a miracle of divine long-suffering that America has not long since perished like Sodom and Gomorrah. Do you, dear reader, desire even more terrible signs of the very last time? Luke 17:26-30. W. [Walther]

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      I have not kept up with the number of abortions in America today, but it is surely a very large number.  But I was a bit surprised at the numbers in Walther's day, given the much lower population. But of greater interest was Walther's comments.  One does not hear of "Abortion" associated with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah today by those who are fighting against it, but Walther connected them. And it is instructive to read the Bible verses that he references.  Indeed, we moderns are certainly witnesses of the incredible "miracle of divine long-suffering" today.

      In the same year 1871 Walther reported and commented on another American church publication's article on a similar subject, which could actually include Abortion.  From the Der Lutheraner, vol. 28 (1871), p. 38-39 [EN]:

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Infanticide [Kindermord]. The "Christian Ambassador" [Evangelical Association] of Sept. 20 also speaks out about this terrible American sin. He writes: 

“It is quite frightening how generally infanticide is practiced in this country. Most of these criminals want to be so 'decent' that they declare it a violation of 'good morals' to call attention to these things. They do not want to hear many addresses of Jesus from the pulpit (because of this). Of course, this is pure hypocrisy. There is a lot of talk in American circles about women's rights, they would better study what women's duties are. The terrible curse from which the American republic suffers is not the ‘disenfranchisement’ of women by men, but their dehumanization by themselves. We know of quite a number who have fallen victim to their murderous handiwork. There are also certain women who pretend to be doctors, go around the country and give lectures about things that are only calculated for women's ears, in which it is taught how fornication can be practiced in a refined way inside and outside of marriage without (as these disgraceful women say) getting into 'misfortune'. We know of cases where English churches were granted to them for this purpose. In this way thousands of hearts are poisoned and many families made unhappy. The condemnation of these child murderers must be terrible.” 

We must add: Is it any wonder that in America such more than pagan abominations flood the land, since one sends one's children to such schools where it is forbidden to expose the holy ten commandments of God to them? If there stood in the place of the religionless schools just as many and so frequented Christian parochial schools, America would then certainly not be "given to do that which is not fit" in a perverse sense. (Rom. 1:26-28.) As long as the church in America holds on to the system of religionless state schools, there is no hope for improvement, no help. These schools are the root of the tree of our ruin; to them the species must be taken, or all other measures will be lost.    W. [Walther]

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One may note that Walther goes to the root of the malaise, the "religionless state schools" in America. These are the schools that most LCMS children have attended, including me. These schools are even defended within the LCMS.  But in 1871, Walther pronounced the awful judgment for America whose Christian children attend state schools: 

“there is no hope for improvement, no help.”