[by C. F. W. Walther; Part 5]
What can we say about that? — We think that only those who have lost a feeling for truthfulness, sincerity, and honesty for his own person, only those do not see that Dr. Preuss, if he has not lied in his letter of resignation, then he was hypocritical in his articles for the Abendschule and Lehre und Wehre. And that if he was not hypocritical in these articles, then he was so in his letter of resignation. That is, that in any case, whatever case we may assume, he has revealed himself as a thoroughly and almost unprecedentedly dishonest character. For it is conceivable that even an honest man, although tormented by grave doubts about Lutheran teachings, may remain in the Lutheran office for a time, hoping to be released from his doubts, and remaining silent until then about the teachings which have become really uncertain for him; but unthinkable, it is morally unthinkable, that the one whose faith is shaken in the main doctrine of the Lutheran Church [Justification] should at the same time not only still present this main doctrine orally and in writing, but even defend it with great zeal and apparently great assurance of faith and faithfulness, and even cite the antagonism of certain doctrines against that main doctrine which has become uncertain to him as the last, highest, most certain proof that such doctrines must be erroneous. But the latter was done by Preuss in those articles. And at the same time that the Antichrist was publicly portrayed, he surrendered his body and soul to the same a few days later. The world so often says that preachers and theologians themselves do not believe what they preach and write. As unjust as this is now, when the world thereby declares all preachers and theologians to be hypocrites, it cannot be denied that there are also preachers and theologians who preach and write what they themselves do not believe, that is, hypocrites; a striking example of this is Preuss, according to his own admission.
Perhaps this still seems to stand in the way of many: First of all, that Preuss experienced among us Lutherans a love which he did not experience anywhere else; that we Lutherans, when he stood in the deepest shame before the whole world, [See Ziegler, p. 290 fn # 8] endangered our own good name by accepting him and, while we reaped shame for it, tried to help him again to a good name, because since there was no compelling proof of guilt, we trusted, in love, his personal assertions that he was innocent; secondly, that Preuss among the Lutherans obtained suitable and rewarding offices according to his gifts. Some may wonder therefore what could have made him, other than his conscience, suddenly give up all this, voluntarily resign himself, and now throw himself into the arms of a community of which he <column 3> did not know whether it would give him a better lot?
Unfortunately, however, it is a fact that Preuss did not resign voluntarily, but only sent in his resignation because he had to fear dismissal. By a strange chain of circumstances at the end of November last year [1871] we discovered that Preuss had already long ago besieged the publisher of a Christian, entertainment newspaper dependent on the synod [Abendschule?] to accept him as co-owner. And when he was not able to achieve this, he had already drawn up a contract on July 22, 1871, signed it himself and coerced the aforementioned publisher into co-signing it, in which Preuss, behind the back of the synod in which he held office, made it binding as soon as the other counterparty would be required to resign from office, namely to “turn his entire working time over to the good editorial work and constant improvement” of that newspaper, on the condition that of reaching a certain number of subscribers he would receive an annual salary of $4000, and as editor, with the increase in the number of subscribers, to receive an ever-increasing salary punctually on the specific day. At the same time, Preuss had insisted that this agreement should be kept strictly secret until the proper time. As long as this matter was still pending and Preuss thought that it was certain of its goal by the signed secret contract, as long as there was not to be discovered the slightest doubt about any Lutheran teaching by Preuss, so he rather taught and defended orally and in writing each of them with all his dialectical gifts so abundantly given to him 6), and declared himself continually ready to step into the breach for any point of our church doctrine.
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6) Dialectical gifts are gifts to prove and disprove in disputation.
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