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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
924 050 584 584
I^ottor
Carl JFerbtimnb
Wimm wmtv
" n-
mis digmus" ) for admission to the academic
studies, and that he never merited the slight-
17
J^octor Carl Walt^tv
est reproof. The pastor primarius and
superintendent at Waldenburg, who wrote
him a testimonial under date of November
21, 1829, immediately after his matricula-
tion at the University of Leipzig, recom-
mends "the hopeful youth, Carl Ferdinand
Walther, to the favorable attention of his
honorable academic teachers, and of other
high patrons and promoters of the sciences,
as being both worthy and in need, as urgently
as respectfully."
There was no question of his being both.
His father gave him his weekly "thaler,"
as he had promised when he expressed his
disapproval of Ferdinand's musical ambi-
tions. He also received a cord of wood
from a certain foundation, established to aid
a number of students in possession of good
gymnasium reports. This was the limit of
his regular support. How he managed to
exist, unless some "high patron and pro-
moter of the sciences" gave heed to the
"urgent and respectful" solicitation of the
pastor primarius of Waldenburg, and came
to his aid, is difficult to understand. His
poverty must have been extreme, for he did
not even own a Bible and he had no money
to buy one. Surely this was an astounding
predicament for a student of theology, and
18
2?irtt) anb gouft
at the same time a remarkable characteriza-
tion of the theological teaching of the uni-
versity where he was being trained to be-
come a minister of the gospel. Indeed, it
is difficult for us to understand how a young
man could come up to the university from
the g3minasium without a Bible of his own.
All becomes plain and simple when we think
of the period. Farrar, in his famous Bamp-
ton lectures on "The History of Free
Thought," characterizes it when he says:
"The present course of lectures relates to
one of the conflicts exhibited in the history
of the Church, viz., the struggle of the
human spirit to free itself from the authority
of the Christian faith." He should have
said, "from the authority of the word of
God." Sturdy old Claus Harms, arch-
deacon at Kiel, who somehow always re-
minds me of Hugh Latimer, had published
his famous Ninety-five Theses on the eve of
the three hundredth anniversary of the
Reformation and struck a brave blow for
Lutheran orthodoxy. But the religious
movement, which we call Deism in England,
Infidelity in France, and Rationalism in Ger-
many still held sway. The confessional re-
action against its blighting influences was not
yet organized. Schleiermacher, whom Doc-
19
Bottot Carl Waltiitv
tor Krauth, in his "Conservative Reforma-
tion,'" pronounces "the founder of the dis-
tinctive theology of the nineteenth century"
(page 148), represents only the speculative
reaction against Rationalism. With this re-
sult: all of the teachers at the Schneeberg
gymnasium, during the attendance of
Walther, with but a single exception, were
outspoken rationalists. "I was eighteen
years old when I left the gymnasium," he
tells us, "and I had never heard a sentence
taken from the word of God out of a believ-
ing mouth. I had never had a Bible, neither
a catechism, but a miserable 'Leitfaden'
(guide or manual), which contained heathen
morality."
It was impossible that the boy should alto-
gether escape the influence of such a religious
environment. Still he never lost the child-
hood faith of his early home training in the
Holy Scriptures as being God's revealed
word, although, as he himself tells us, he had
neither knowledge nor experience of that
living faith which overcomes the devil, the
world and the flesh.
He speaks of this with affecting frankness.
In an address, delivered in 1878, speaking
of the historical faith which holds the Bible
to be God's word, he says; "Through this,
20
2?irtt) anb fgoutt
that a man holds the Holy Scriptures to be
God's word merely because he was so taught
by his parents, namely, through a purely
human faith in the same, certainly no man
can become righteous before God and saved.
Nevertheless, such a purely human faith is
an inexpressibly great treasure, yea, a pre-
cious, costly gift of the prevenient grace of
God. I may in this respect present myself
to you as an example. My dear. God-fearing
father taught me from childhood that the
Bible is God's word. But I soon left my
parental home — in my eighth year — to live
in unbelieving circles. I did not lose this
historical faith. It accompanied me through
my life like an angel of God. But I spent
my more than eight years of gymnasium life
unconverted."
Walther got his Bible. One day, after he
was a student of theology at Leipzig Uni-
versity, he was debating with himself
whether or not to purchase this book he so
much desired to own. He had but a few
"groschen" left of the paternal "thaler a
week." If he spent them for a Bible, he
might be compelled to go hungry for a few
days. The temptation to defer the purchase
was rather strong. Finally he said to him-
self; "Why, I am spending the money for
21
J^octor Carl l©alt6Er
God's word; He will surely help me and not
forsake me in my need." Nor was his faith
shamed. The very next day a farmer from
Langenschursdorf looked him up and in-
formed him that, intending to come to Leip-
zig, he had stopped at the parsonage to ask
his father if he had any message for his son.
Papa Walther at first said, "No, not any."
Then, stopping to think a moment, he gave
him a letter, which he was pleased to deliver.
Walther opened his letter and found a
"thaler." What is more, he had a stronger
faith in Him whose promises cannot fail.
And so, on December 9, 1829, we find this
entry in his diary: "To-day I read in the
Bible, namely, in the Book of the Acts, firstly
in order to somewhat orientate myself there-
in, for as yet very little is known to me of the
apostles, and I can hardly repeat their
twelve names; secondly, to edify myself by
the examples of the workings and mani-
festations of an unmovable faith." This
looks promising. A "thaler" a week, a cord
of wood, contentment in poverty, willingness
to sacrifice, a desire for the word, a bit of
Christian experience, a strengthening of
faith, and a study of the heroic deeds of the
holy men of God. After Acts comes Romans.
Paul will teach us as he taught Luther what
22
2?irti) anb gouti)
faith is, what it works and how it manifests
itself. The Herr Studiosus is in a fair way
to become a theologian.
23
chapter 2
^anibersiitp OBnbironment
But how did this young man who felt him-
self to be born for nothing else than for
music make up his mind to become a student
of theology and prepare himself to enter the
holy ministry?
His father, true to family traditions,
wished his sons to become ministers. While
he did not absolutely forbid, he gave no en-
couragement to Ferdinand's desire to study
music. Nor can the "thaler a week" he
promised him if he would study theology be
looked upon as a sufficient inducement to
persuade him to give up a cherished ambition.
If need be, he could easily earn that and
more by giving music lessons or playing with
some orchestra. Neither his father's wishes
nor the promise of support determined his
choice. There was another and a far more
honorable reason. His brother. Otto Her-
mann, who had now studied theology for two
years, coming home to spend his vacation,
brought a number of recently published
tracts and booklets with him, among them
a biography of the famous J. F. Oberlin,
24
^ambersiitp ajnbironment
written by G. H. Schubert. The reading
of this book made a profound impression
upon Ferdinand Walther. He writes in his
diary: "I am living quite happy, and philos-
ophizing with my brother upon the most in-
teresting occurrences of our lives, and read-
ing, with real greed, the life of Pastor Ober-
lin by Schubert; this has filled my whole be-
ing and shown that the prospects which a
theologian may have are the most beautiful,
insomuch as he, if he only will, may create
for himself a field of opportunity such as
no other man, who chooses some other call-
ing, may ever hope for. The anxious doubt,
'Will you then some day secure an adequate
support?' is now completely overcome; for I
have imbibed out of this most precious book
an immovable confidence in God and a firm
faith in His providence and its workings
upon our destiny, after I saw this awakened
through the conversations with my dear,
good brother."
Can there be a finer testimony to the value
of Christian biography? God teaches men
through the Christian experiences of other
men. God led Wftlther into the service of
His Church through the reading of a little
book on the life and work of a devoted
Christian minister, who faithfully labored
25
i^octor Carl WalUev
among the peasants of Steinthal in the
Vosges Mountains. And so, after a brief
vacation of several weeks, Carl Ferdinand
Walther went to Leipzig in October, 1829,
with his "dear, good brother," Otto Her-
mann, to matriculate as a theological student.
When Walther entered the university, the
so-called "common rationalism," introduced
into Germany by the speculative philosophy
of Wolf, the importation of the works of
the English Deists and the colony of French
infidels established in Prussia by Frederick
the Great, was at its height. Strauss pub-
lished his celebrated work on the Life of
Christ in 1835. Denying the revealed char-
acter of Scripture and treating it as an ordi-
nary history, rationalism explained away the
supernatural element, such as miracles, by
insisting that they were merely the results
of oriental modes of speech. Eichborn, at
Goettingen (1752-1827), applied this prin-
ciple of interpretation to the Old Testament
and insisted that the cloud of smoke at Mt.
Sinai was a thunder-storm, and the shining
of Moses' face a perfectly natural phenom-
enon. Paulus of Jena extended this principle
to the New Testament. According to him
the transfiguration was but the confused
recollection of sleeping men who had seen
26
t^ntlierseitp <{Enlitronment
Jesus with two unknown friends In the beauti-
ful light of early morning, the resurrection
was the awakening of our Lord from a
trance or the semblance of death. The teach-
ing of these men made Jesus to be merely
a wise and learned man, His miracles merely
acts of skill or chance. As its name implies,
rationalism put reason not merely above, but
in the place of revelation; insisting that
Christianity was not designed to teach divine
mysteries but only to confirm the religious
teaching of reason. No one, it insisted,
ought ever to accept anything as true which
was not capable of rational demonstration.
Rationalism was thus destructive of all faith.
It denied the doctrine of the Trinity. It re-
garded the death of Christ as an historic
event, the death of a moral martyr, who died
for his convictions or as a symbol that sacri-
fices were abolished. Veneration for the
word of God was called "Bibliolatry." With
this result: Christianity was reduced to a
system of natural morality, or, at best, a
kind of Socinlanlsm.
Preaching under rationalism became
frankly practical and utilitarian. The great
Inexhaustible themes of the Inspired word,
repentance, sin, faith, justification, sanctifi-
cation, salvation by grace were cast aside by
27
J^ottat Carl Waltiftv
the men who preached to their congregations
on themes which might have been suggested
by the pithy sayings of Poor Richard's Al-
manac. Nicolai, in his Sebaldus Nothanker,
drew a faithful picture of the average
rationalistic preacher, who knew how to
make use of a Bible text "as a harmless
means for impressing useful truths." Only
by so doing was the "utility of the ministerial
office" preserved. Thus Sebaldus Nothanker
boasts that "he was very studious to preach
to his peasant congregations to rise early in
the morning, attend carefully to their cows,
work in their fields and gardens as well as
they could, and to do all this with the view
of becoming comfortable and acquiring
property." A shallow, selfish morality, in
which prudence constituted the principal
means, and temporal prosperity the great
end of all life, was the unfailing theme of
these preachers. There was quite a passion
for elaborate sermons and sermon series for
special classes of men. There were dis-
courses against law suits and superstition,
on the duties of servants, on health, etc.
Thus Steinbrenner, in 1804, published a vol-
ume of sermons on "The Art of Prolonging
Human Life, According to Hufeland's
Principles,"
28
^miittsitjf a great Lutheran University in the very
heart of America. While not openly out-
spoken or discussed, this must have been in
the minds of Walther and his co-laborers.
The unfortunate predestination controversy
of the eighties spoiled that plan and threw
back the development of the Church for
many years. But that is another story.
The gymnasium or college proper was
separated from the seminary and removed
to Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1861. Concordia,
Fort Wayne, thus became the mater and
model of all the other Concordias since es-
tablished at strategic points in this country.
The seminary remained at St. Louis. A new
seminary building was dedicated in 1883, in
the presence of 20,000 people. "The splen-
did edifice," Hochstetter says, "like the bride
of a king, overlooked all its neighbors."
Despite the erection of an addition, which
has sadly marred the appearance of "the
king's bride," the seminary building is again
too small, for it is called upon to house 328
students of theology, the largest number en-
rolled at any one Protestant theological sem-
inary in America. To this number we must
add the 229 students of theology, enrolled at
the so-called "Practical Seminary," an institu-
159
©ottor Carl Walton
tion founded by Pfarrer Loehe, of Nuendet-
telsau, Bavaria, in Fort Wayne, in 1846, for
the training of gifted young men as Nothel-
fer, to assist in the shepherding of the Luth-
eran multitudes pouring into this country.
After various vicissitudes, this institution
finally found a permanent home in the build-
ing of the former "Illinois State University,"
founded by Doctor Passavant in 1854, dedi-
cated with an address by Abraham Lincoln
and purchased through the Springfield con-
gregation from the Pennsylvania Minis-
terium in 1874.
All of this out of a little one-room log
cabin college, established by faith "at the
Settlement of the German Lutherans in
Perry County, near the Obrazo."
160
Cfjapter 12
iFounbation-lapins
The establishment of the Perry County
gymnasium by Walther and his associates
was a great event, because it led to great
things. An even greater event was the de-
bate held within its rude walls in April, 1841,
because it led to even greater things. This
debate, together with the spiritual trials
which preceded and invited it, as Koestering
truthfully remarks, "served to sweep out of
this communion the Stephanistic leaven and
to lay the foundation of pure, sincere truth
upon which the Evangelical Lutheran Synod
of Missouri, Ohio and other States was after-
wards built." In other words, this debate
laid down and clearly established by an ap-
peal to God's inspired word, as the source
and fountain of all truth, certain funda-
mental truths and principles concerning the
Church and its organization, which were
afterwards incorporated into the Constitu-
tion of the Missouri Synod. As Walther
wrote in the preface to his first great book,
"The Voice of Our Church on the Question
of Church and Office" : "We have not mod-
161
j^octor Carl Walt^tt
eled the teaching of our Church according
to our circumstances, but these according to
the teaching of our Church."
But what did our Church teach? In
the confusion which followed the deposing
of Stephan, no one seemed to know. A more
hopeless situation never confronted any body
of men. If "hope deferred maketh the heart
sick," utter absence of all hope or anything
to ground hope on maketh sick without any
prospect or without possibility of a cure.
Such a condition means death of body and
soul.
Walther was sick, sick unto death. Hoch-
stetter talks about a malignant nervous gall
fever and a persistent intermittent fever.
Koestering speaks of "lucid intervals," which
can only mean comparative freedom from
periods of deep care and despondency.
Walther was sick in soul as well as in body.
And no wonder. Indeed, it is said of his
brother. Otto Hermann, who died within
two years after the coming of the Saxons to
America, only thirty-one years old, that his
deep and penitent remorse over his connec-
tion with and attachment to Stephan was an
indirect cause of his untimely death. This
feeling was doubtless shared by his brother,
Carl Ferdinand. It was aggravated by the
162
iFounbation^laptng
condition of material poverty and hopeless
spiritual confusion of the colony, a condition
for which Walther's tender conscience would
hardly fail to assume more than its full share
of responsibility. But the greatest of these
trials was the hopeless doctrinal uncertainty
described in Chapter IX. Uncertainty and
doubt with respect to the validity of his call
and the lawfulness of his ministerial acts is
a condition which no conscientious pastor
can long endure. "The congregation lacked
a firm doctrinal foundation," says Hoch-
stetter, "consequently the hearts could not be
established until they were estabhshed in the
truth out of God's word." When he says
"congregation," he includes the ministers.
Although Walther had never accepted the
hierarchical teachings of Stephan, It must,
nevertheless, be said that he was not fully and
firmly established in the truth afterwards so
convincingly stated in his book, "Of the
Church and the Office." This not only ap-
pears from the letter in which his brother.
Otto Hermann, tells him that his excerpts
on the call will avail him nothing If he does
not first assure himself of his call in Christ
unto His eternal kingdom of grace, but
Walther repeatedly admits this himself, not
only In private, but also in public. For in-
163
i^octot Carl Walt^tt
stance, when he speaks of the attitude he
once assumed over against the "Public
Protestation," published on November 23,
1839, by Doctor Carl Eduard Vehse, Hein-
rich Edward Fischer and Gustav Jaekel,
Walther says: "It was principally this writ-
ing which gave us a powerful impulse to
more and more recognize and endeavor to
put away the remaining perversion. With-
out this writing — I now acknowledge it with
lively conviction — ^we, perhaps, would still
have gone many a false way, out of which
we now have happily found ourselves. I
confess this with the deeper shame, the more
ungratefully I once conducted myself toward
this precious gift of God. Unfaithfully as
many, together with myself, acted toward the
light given us, God, nevertheless, did not
cease to make more and more rays of His
truth penetrate our darkness, to tear us away
from many things to which we in our per-
verseness tried to hold, to reveal to us great,
dangerous evils and to more and more lead
our hearts in the way of truth."
This Carl Eduard Vehse was a Doctor of
Laws, who had come to America with the
Saxon emigrants. After remaining here only
ten months, he returned to Europe, where he
published what Koestering, with some bias,
164
JFounbatton^laptns
calls "a rather partisan history" of the Saxon
emigration. This book contains the "Public
Protestation against the false medieval,
papistic and sectarian Stephanistic system
of Church Government." It is a compila-
tion of quotations, chiefly from Luther and
the Confessions, as well as other recognized
teachers of the Church, on the questions
which agitated the Perry County and St.
Louis congregations.
Addressed to the Pastors Loeber, Keyl,
Buerger and the Walther brothers, it has a
foreword to the congregations. Briefly
stated, the "Protestation" is an attempt to
define the true doctrine of Church govern-
ment and the proper relation between minis-
ter and congregation. Presented by laymen,
who point out that it was "the chief purpose
of the whole emigration to make truly free
here on this free soil the Evangelical Luth-
eran Church, which had, indeed, been op-
pressed, it," as Walther says, "gave them a
powerful impulse to more and more recog-
nize and endeavor to put away the remaining
perversion." This "powerful impulse" pow-
erfully impelled Walther, during his illness
at the home of his brother-in-law, Pastor
Keyl, to engross himself with a profound
study of Luther along these lines, a study he
165
i^octotr Carl Wal^tv
began as a candidate in his father's library
and continued through his whole life. By
God's grace he found that certainty without
which no minister can ever hope "to be able
by sound doctrine both to exhort and convince
the gainsayers." He was thus equipped,
when a public debate was arranged at the
Altenburg log cabin college for a discussion
of the question, "Are we still a Christian
congregation?" to firmly establish these peo-
ple in the truth of the divine word. And thus
it can and must be truthfully said : "In this
distress, when it was believed that they were
no longer a Christian congregation, but a
disorderly company of people (Zusammen-
gelaufener Haufe), lost for time and eter-
nity, it was one man who saved them, the
above named, Ferdinand Walther." — R.
Hoffmann, "Die Missouri Synode in Nord-
amerika," Guetersloh, l88i.
The Altenburg debate was held in April,
1841, two years after God, by the exposure
of Stephan's sin, had deprived the Saxon emi-
grants of every human authority and support
upon which they had once so confidently re-
lied. Walther was opposed by Doctor Adolf
Marbach, a learned and adroit jurist, who
took the position that the colony, by sepa-
rating itself from the Church of Germany,
166
ipouiUiatton^aptns
had ceased to be a Christian congregation,
and become a disorderly group of people,
absolutely lacking all power and authority
to perform any ecclesiastical function what-
soever. As the only proper solution of the
difficulty, he urged a return to Europe, espe-
cially of those emigrants who still had natural
duties to fulfill at home; without, however,
being able to suggest any way by which their
return might be accomplished.
Walther had made most careful written
preparation for this debate, from which
Koestering quotes at length. He points out
two things which especially fill him with
gravest apprehension. The first is the fail-
ure to properly distinguish between deceivers
and deceived and a consequent tyrannical de-
mand that innocent people confess them-
selves guilty of sins which they never com-
mitted. Remembering his own personal ex-
perience at his conversion, he asks : "Is not
an especially high degree of knowledge of
sin being made a condition of grace and
salvation?" He insists: "A pennyweight of
true poverty of spirit is worth more than a
thousand hundredweight of mere head-
knowledge of sin!" The other evil is the
denial on the part of some of the presence
among them not only of a Lutheran, but of
167
J^octor Carl Wal^tv
a Chrstian congregation, and the possibility
of any lawful administration of the goods of
the Church. Not content with keeping their
doubts to themselves, the people that hold
them stormily insist upon trying to impress
them upon others as being irrefutable truths
instead of mere uncertainties and doubts.
Walther quotes Luther, who says of the en-
thusiasts of his day that Satan through them
brought forth nothing but uncertainty and
doubt, and then they, disparaging everybody
who disagreed with them, called their doubts
Scripture and God's word. "For it is sin and
a tempting of God, whoever is uncertain and
doubtful in divine things; and whoever
teaches uncertain notions for divine truth
denies just as well as he who openly speaks
against the truth; for he speaks what he him-
self does not know and still would have it
be the truth" (Luther).
After thus ruthlessly dissecting and laying
bare existing evils, Walther proceeds to
state the problem. "It is a question," he
says, "of quieting of conscience, of the re-
jection of false teaching, seeking to insinu-
ate itself under the guise of humility, of the
firm holding of the true doctrine of the
Church, Church power, office, call, fellow-
ship, power of the word and the divine order.
168
ipounbation4apms
It is not a question of any man's honor or
justification, but of the honor of God." He
embodied his teaching on these vital subjects
in eight theses or sentences, which he success-
fully defended by an appeal to the Scriptures
and the Confessions of the Church, sup-
ported and elucidated by the writings of
Luther and other unquestioned authorities.
Since they lay the foundation, not only for
all of Walther's later writings on the subject
of Church organization, but for the organi-
zation of the Missouri Synod itself, they are
quoted in full :
The true Church, in the most real and most perfect
sense, is the totality (Gesamtheit) of all true believers,
who from the beginning to the end of the world have
been called and sanctified by the Holy Spirit through
the word out of all peoples and tongues. And since
God alone knows these true believers (2 Tim. 2: 19),
it is also called the invisible Church. No one belongs
to this true Church who is not spiritually united with
Christ, for it is the spiritual body of Jesus Christ.
II
The name of the true Church also belongs to all
those visible companies of men with whom God's word
is purely taught and the holy sacraments are admin-
istered according to the institution of Christ. True, in
this Church there are godless, hypocrites and heretics,
but they are not true members of the same, nor do
they constitute the Church.
169
i^octor Carl Waltiftv
III
The name Church, and, in a certain sense, the name
true Church, also belongs to those visible companies of
men who have united under the confession of a falsified
faith, and, therefore, have incurred the guilt of a par-
tial departure from the truth; provided they possess
so much of God's word and the holy Sacraments in
purity that children of God may thereby be born.
When such companies are called true Churches, it is
not the intention to state that they are faithful, but
only that they are real Churches, as opposed to all
worldly organizations (Gemeinschaften).
IV
The name Church is not improperly applied to hetero-
dox companies, but according to the manner of speech
of the word of God itself. It is also not immaterial
that this high name is allowed to such communions,
for out of this follows:
1. That members also of such companies may be
saved, for without the Church there is no salvation.
V
2. The outward separation of an heterodox company
from an orthodox Church is not necessarily a separa-
tion from the universal Christian .Church, nor a re-
lapse into heathenism, and does not yet deprive that
company of the name Church.
VI
3. Even heterodox companies have Church power;
even among them the goods of the Church may be
validly administered, the ministry established, the Sac-
raments validly administered, and the keys of the king-
dom of heaven exercised.
VII
4. Even heterodox companies are not to be dissolved,
but reformed.
170
iFounbatuin^apins
VIII
The orthodox Church is chiefly to he judged by the
common orthodox, public confession upon which its
members recognize themselves to have been pledged and
to which they confess.
Plainly the man is no compromising Church
politician. He makes no attempt to unite
divergent elements by ignoring real issues
and urging mutual concessions, which never
settle anything but only defer the day of final
reckoning and inevitable division. Walther
knows that there is no true unity but the unity
in the one faith. He aims to unify before at-
tempting to unite. He acts upon the word
of his Lord: "If ye continue in my word,
then are ye my disciples indeed ; and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free" (Job 8 : 3 1, 32) . Christian liberty and
Christian unity through a knowledge of
Christian truth, this was the principle and
the goal of his every activity in the field of
Church organization. It inspired the Alten-
burg theses, and their amplification, elucida-
tion and application both in his own writings
on this subject as well as the doctrinal dis-
cussions which are such an important feature
at all sessions of the Synod organized under
his leadership in 1847. Beginning with his
book, "Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der
171
i^ottor Carl Wal^tt
Frage von Kirche und Amt" ("The Voice of
Our Church on the Question of Church and
OiBce"), and continued in "Die Rechte
Gestalt einer vom Staat unabhaenlgigen Orts-
gemeinde" ("The Correct Form of a Local
Congregation Independent of the State"),
the Altenburg theses "powerfully impelled"
a discussion of the subject, "Die Evangelisch
Lutherische Kirche, die wahre sichtbare
Kirche auf Erden" (The Evangelical Luth-
eran Church, the true Church visible upon
earth"), which was presented and discussed
by Walther at the sessions of the general
Church body at St. Louis in 1866. Not con-
tent with this, he presented and for thirteen
years elaborated a subject at the sessions of
the Western District of the Synod, which
rings out like a paean of victory. "Only
through the doctrine of the Lutheran Church
is God alone given all glory, an irrefutable
proof that her doctrine is the alone true."
He completed this magnificent work in 1881,
as it were closing his life work, with the mot-
to which had inspired his every thought and
deed. Soli Deo Gloria! (To God alone be
glory!) It all grew out of the Altenburg
debate, the first effect of which was a "quiet-
ing of troubled consciences by the rejecting
of error and establishing in the truth" of a
172
ifounbatton^laping
little group of Saxon immigrants in Perry
County, Missouri. Verily "it is a good thing
that the heart be established with grace" —
the grace of God which leads His people to
a knowledge of the truth.
173
Cliapter 13
Congresational <©rsam^ation
The truths so successfully defended and
the principles laid down at the Altenburg de-
bate, in April, 1841, were first applied under
Walther's leadership in organizing and or-
dering the affairs of the St. Louis congrega-
tion. Composed of the emigrants who had
remained in the city, where they found em-
ployment and a livelihood, and strengthened
by accessions from Perry County and some
of the "Berliners," who had come from New
York, the congregation steadily grew in
numbers, although it worshiped at most un-
favorable hours in the basement of Christ
Episcopal Church on Fifth Street, near the
court-house. What was more important, the
congregation, under the faithful, self-sacri-
ficing ministry of Otto Hermann Walther, its
first pastor, grew mightily in Christian knowl-
edge. The tribulation of outward poverty
and inward spiritual distress softened their
hearts to receive the word.
Their poverty must have been extreme.
They gave their pastor a salary of $15 per
month and his house rent. When he mar-
174
Congtegatuinal ILif e
One cannot be too grateful to the col-
lector and editor of Walther's letters, two
volumes of which have just been published
with the promise of others to follow. Judged
merely as literature, their charm is indescrib-
able. They are written with the same pains-
taking accuracy of expression, correctness in
form, refined delicacy of taste; in a word,
with that same inimitable style which marks
his sermons. But they have another and a
greater value; they reveal sides of his char-
acter perhaps unknown and unsuspected by
any save his most intimate friends. Like
Luther, he could joke and even politely tease
a little. He writes to Wyneken and tells him :
"I know what a hard case you are." He
calls him "My dear old companion-in-arms."
How delicately and politely he teases Ottesen
on the aristocratic feelings of a Norwegian
as compared with a "plump" German. Their
greatest value, however, is this, they make
possible the description with his own words
of those most sacred of all earthly things,
love, courtship, marriage and family life;
215
i^octor Carl Walt^tt
things which it otherwise would be impos-
sible to discuss. Yet, for a complete picture
of any man their discussion is indispensable.
As he himself says : "Hat dock der Theologe
den Menschen zur Unterlage. Der Mensch
hat auch seine Beduerfnisse, und nicht nur
Leibes, Sondern auch und mehr noch Ge-
mutsbeduerfnisse soil er nicht verkuemmern"
("The theologian has the man for his basis.
And the man has his needs, not only needs
of the body but also and more needs of the
heart" — Oh, that German word, Gemilt! —
"if he is not to pine away"). Now, where is
a man to satisfy his heart needs, his Ge-
mutsbeduerfnisse, if not in his own home
circle? And how can we ever know a man,
if we know nothing of his heart needs and
family life? It was this feeling that
prompted the editor to give pre-eminence to
a love-letter by placing it first in his collec-
tion. It was written to Miss Emilie Buenger,
Perry County, Mo., under date of August
10, 1841, a little over three months after
Walther came to St. Louis to succeed his
deceased brother. Otto Hermann. Emilie
Buenger was the sister of Agnes, the widow
of Otto Hermann Walther, and of Walther's
Jonathan, Joh. Fried. Buenger. The Buen-
gers, like the Walthers, were the descendants
216
JQarriase anb JFamilp TLilt
of an old family of ministers, which both
on the father's and the mother's side went
back to the days of the Reformation. The
father, Pastor Jacob Friedrich Buenger, died
before the Saxon emigration. The widowed
mother was the daughter of her husband's
predecessor, a Pastor Wilhelm Gottlieb
Reiz, who died in 1808. Her grandfather
was the author of a devotional book noted
for its fervent piety. She came to America
with her children in 1839, traveling over
New York to St. Louis and Perry County.
When Walther wrote this letter she seems
to have been in St. Louis with her widowed
daughter Agnes, who later became the wife
of Pastor Ottomar Fuerbringer, a name
which, like Sievers, is inseparably associated
with the Franconian colonies of the Saginaw
Valley, Mich. Emilie Buenger was with
her sister Lydia and her brothers In Perry
County, one of whom. Doctor Ernest Buen-
ger, was a physician and the chief support of
the family. Friedrich Buenger, candidate of
theology, had come to St. Louis in July to
take charge of the parish school. These
details are interesting because they show that
Walther, when selecting a helpmeet, looked
to ministerial traditions rather than to
worldly advantage, a fact which might, per-
217
i^octor Carl D^altter
haps, be emphasized with some profit by the
professors teaching pastoral theology to the
graduating classes at our seminaries. Guen-
ther says of Emilie Buenger: "She was
a faithful disciple of the Lord, who adorned
her faith with quiet, devout life, and espe-
cially proved it through her love of God's
word and through works of love and mercy.
She was indeed and in truth a helpmeet to
her husband for forty-four years.
A translation of his letter asking her hand
which would preserve the fine sentiment of
the original is impossible. He addresses it
"Teure, herzlich geliebte Emilie," and signs
himself "Ihr taeglicher Fuerbitter vor Gott."
He uses the formal "Sie" instead of the fa-
miliar, affectionate "Du," through the whole
letter, which to us, in these straightforward,
prosaic days, seems almost an excess of
politeness. But it is the complete Walther
writing, even to the use of his favorite figure,
antithesis, which he, in common with all
strong writers of ancient and modern times,
employs with such complete mastery and
telling effect. He addresses his letter, "Dear,
Sincerely Beloved Emilie I" Then he checks
himself, as if he had said too much, and ex-
plains that he two years before, through her
brother Fritz, had at least distantly indicated
218
JfllSarriage anb JFamilp JLilt
a precious, high desire of his heart which she
alone in this whole wide world could fulfill.
He hints at the illness, which had so often
filled his soul with grief because it made him
dread that the dearest wish of his heart
might never be granted him. But God has
been gracious, and so he takes courage to
lay this desire at the feet of his Lord. Her
"Yes" or "No" will fully reveal God's will.
He, therefore, asks her directly to become
the companion of his life and to respond to
the love for her which God has kindled in
his heart. He has nothing to offer her. She
knows his faults, his weaknesses and his pov-
erty. But he can promise that she in him will
find a faithful and loving husband. He has
no one to speak for him. And so he has
asked God Himself to be his Eliezer.
He then, because of the difficulty of com-
munication, discusses the possible publica-
tion of bans and the date of their wedding.
But he is too bold. He does this only be-
cause, even if she should refuse to accept his
hand, he cannot deny himself the precious
privilege of thinking of her, even though it
be for only a few moments, as his dear, be-
trothed bride, presented to him of God.
Then he closes with a prayer, and signs him-
self "Your daily intercessor with God."
219
Potior Carl Wall^tx
It IS a charming letter, full of sweet,
wholesome sentiment, dictated by sincerest
love, and filled with a high-minded piety.
Emilie Buenger must have been a proud
woman to receive such a letter from such a
man. Her reply could not have been long
delayed, although th6 waiting seemed long to
him. On August 25 he writes her again:
"My in Christ Jesus dearly beloved Bride I
So, after a long, yearning wait, your precious
reply is in my hands. God, as I with great
joy of heart learn from it, has assured you
of His gracious will that we together are to
pass through this present unto the life to
come. His holy name be praised for this
forever and ever!"
Then he thinks of the home they are about
to found. "Oh! let us plead in the name of
Jesus that the Lord may give us grace to
lay, on our wedding day, the first foundation-
stone of a little Christian house church
(Rom. 16:5). Oh! how I long that our
home may be a faithful pattern of a truly
Christian family, in which God may pass in
and out and all the children of God be in-
cited to praise the Father in heaven (Matt.
5:16)."
This is exactly what their home was, "a
little house church," "a model of truly Chris-
220
J^atrtage anb JFamtlp Htfe
tian family." He looked to her to make and
keep it such. He writes: "But I, alas, here-
unto feel so little strength. So much the
more do I hope of you, dear Emilie." She
must have been a strong-minded woman, this
Emilie Buenger, suited to be the intellectual
companion of a man who stood head and
shoulders above his contemporaries. He
suggests that she read the marriage sermons
appended by that man of God, Doctor
Luther, to his Epistle Postil. And then, with
simple, childlike affection, he closes: "Now
may God be with you, my beloved Bride.
May He keep your love unto me, even as I,
with God's help, shall abide therein unto
death. Your Ferdinand."
They were married in the little church of
the Saxon emigrants at Dresden, Perry
County, on September 21, 1841. Pastor
Keyl, his brother-in-law, performed the mar-
riage ceremony. Then they returned to St.
Louis to begin their simple housekeeping in
the rooms above the school in the rented
building on Poplar Street, between Third
and Fourth Streets. Their furnishings were
probably on a par with "the table, the simple
bed and the three chairs" of his sainted
brother. But with all its poverty, it was
that blessed thing which Martin Luther and
221
i^octor Carl tl^alttier
his Katherine gave the Church, a Lutheran
parsonage.
About four and a half years later, at a
meeting held in St. Louis, preliminary to the
organization of the Missouri Synod, the
pastors Fuerbringer, Ernst, Sihler and
Lochner were Walther's guests. Here is
Lochner's description of Walther's home
and their entertainment : "How modest, not
to say poor, were our dear hosts' outward
circumstances I Opposite the old Trinity
Church, where the Saxon mills now stand,
there was a small, two-story brick house.
The second-floor front was occupied by
Shoemaker Neumiller, a brother-in-law of
Walther" (he had married Clementine Buen-
ger, another sister of Walther's wife) ; "the
second-floor rear, by the sainted 'Pastorin'
Buenger, Walther's and not long afterwards
my mother-in-law, who owned the house."
(Lochner married Lydia Buenger, another
sister.) "Walther lived on the lower floor,
which he had rented. This lower part con-
sisted of a living room, which at the same
time was a bed-room for him, his wife and
two children, a small adjoining summer
kitchen and his study. The latter at the same
time also served as the guest chamber. When
the time to go to sleep came, the lounge was
222
JB^arriage anb iFamilp TLitt
opened to serve as a double bed for Doctor
Sihler and Pastor Fuerbringer, and from
under it a low frame" (it must have been a
trundle-bed) "drawn forth as a reclining
place for Pastor Ernst and myself. Morn-
ings, during breakfast, the transformation
of the improvised bed-room into a study took
place."
Talk about "low living and high think-
ing!" Surely, it was to be found here. And
if there is any question regarding the "high
thinking," we have only to read the letters
written to his wife by Walther from Ger-
many on the occasion of his visit in 1860.
He discusses the men he met, the sermons he
heard, the religious conditions he found, as
if he were talking to a fellow theologian.
And then, like a good husband, he adds a
postscript and tells her that he will bring the
desired table linens.
God blessed the union of Ferdinand and
Emilie Walther with six children. The eld-
est, Christiane Magdalene, one of the two
infants baptized at the dedication of the first
Trinity Church, was born November 22,
1842. She became the wife of Walther's
nephew, the deceased Pastor Stephanus Keyl.
His eldest son, Hermann Christoph, was
born October 25, 1844, and died July 24,
223
i^octor Carl Walf^tv
1848. His death was caused by concussion
of the brain, the result of an unfortunate fall.
The twin boys, Constantin and Ferdinand
Gerhard, were born February 23, 1847.
Ferdinand Gerhard is pastor of a church at
Brunswick, Missouri. The second daughter,
Emma Julie, who was born July 27, 1849,
became the wife of the deceased Pastor J.
H. Niemann, of Cleveland, for many years
President of the "Middle District" of the
Missouri Synod. She entered into her rest
before her husband. A fourth son. Christian
Friedrich, who was born on June 29, 1851,
died as an infant.
Walther was a lover of children. This
not only appears from his relations with his
Lenchen and Julchen and the twin sons,
Ferdinand and Constantin, with whom we
may group Johannes Walther, the son of his
brother. Otto Hermann, but it is even more
apparent from the affectionate joy he has in
his grandchildren. In a letter to his son-in-
law, Stephanus Keyl, he expresses the wish
that they might so divide their possession
that he could have them without depriving
their parents of them. He tells him and
Lenchen that he looks upon their children
as if they were his own, and rejoices over
them as over a sweet gift for his withered
224
M^txiaQt anb ipamtlp Htfe
age, by which it is again made to green and
bloom. The joy he tasted at the birth of
his twins, which he expresses in a letter,
written to "Liddy" (at that time the wife of
Pastor Lochner), is renewed every time the
birth of a grandchild is announced. His
letter of strengthening comfort to his daugh-
ter Lenchen, who was looking forward to
the blessed privilege of Christian mother-
hood, is one of the most beautiful things in
all epistolary literature. "Think," he says,
"is it not a great thing that God should honor
you to give life and existence to an immortal
being, called unto everlasting life and already
preciously redeemed through Christ? And
when the dear child is happily born into the
world, this is a greater event than one thinks.
For the child is then there in order that it
may know God for all eternity, to praise
Him and to be blessed forever. If God
were to present you with a million dollars,
that would be a far inferior gift than such
a little child." He says "Kindlein." When-
ever he talks of children, he unconsciously
uses affectionate diminutives and little pet
names. The Gaelic, they say, has some
thirty of them. It must be the most affec-
tionate language in the world. Anglo-Saxon,
with its "business as usual," has none. It is,
225
I^octor Carl Waltittt
therefore, impossible to convey any adequate
conception of the wealth of tenderness and
affectionate love which quivers through his
letters when he speaks of his grandchildren.
They must be read in the original. Still, we
must attempt just one translation.
On August 4, 1866, he writes to his son-
in-law: "Little Emily parades around the
whole day, with the exception of the noon
hour, when she loves to rest from her gov-
ernmental cares, sleeping by preference upon
the carpet of the guest chamber, with a pil-
low under her head, in the shade of the great
house with its ornamental trees, as if the
entire jurisdiction of Concordia were given
over to her administration. Her energy has
already attained a certain fame in the child-
world of the entire neighborhood. True, be-
sides great amiableness, she has a consider-
able measure of that strength of character,
which, without doing violence to language,
one might also call self-will. But she has
already noticed, after her brief stay in these
regions, that there are still powers above her,
which are able to use the acacias with their
beautiful twigs for other than shade pur-
poses. True, it has hitherto only been neces-
sary to show her one of these twigs without
any further use being made of it, but I have
226
jfiKarriase anb ipamilp JLift
been compelled to raise my bass voice out of
the study window, when the little hoyden
absolutely aimed to carry out her will as the
highest law of the house. Nevertheless, she
is more intimate with no one than with her
grandpapa, for he allows her many innocent
things which mother is not disinclined to
refuse her. I have only to show myself and
she runs to meet me, her face beaming with
joy.
"Dear little Theodorchen is also the pet
of all. He is such a sweet child that he can-
not possibly save himself from kisses. Al-
ways friendly, he only laments when he, as
it seems to me, suffers from teething. There
is never a lack of arms and hands to carry
him. Grandmother would like very much to
teach him to eat, in order to spare his
mother, but this seems to be the hardest of
lessons for him. He appears to hold to the
apostolical, 'I have fed you with milk, and
not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able
to bear it, neither yet now are ye able" ; and I
believe with right, for the basis of this spirit-
ual sense certainly is the natural truth that
little children should have mothers' milk."
His letters to the Keyls are full of such
affectionate little chats, and we owe the fam-
ily an immense debt of gratitude for having
227
J^octor Carl IBalttier
permitted their publication. Written for the
intimacy of the family circle, they permit
us to look deep into the very heart of a
man who could turn aside from the multi-
tudinous duties resting upon him, to forget,
for a moment, the oppressive cares which
burdened his soul in the sweet and pure joys
of Christian fatherhood.* When death en-
tered the Keyl home, taking two of the little
ones, this man with the unbending will broke
down and wept like our Luther at the death-
bed of his Lenchen. He writes: "To-day,
when I received the message, and saw 'Phila-
delphia,' my tears flowed. We all gave our
tears free course." "My father-heart is also
torn, and my hand writes while hot tears
flow from my eyes." "It gives me inexpress-
ible pain, that I cannot once again see that
little cherub face and press a kiss upon its
cold lips." And then he comforts his Magda-
lenchen, "Meine Goldtochter," he calls her,
together with her husband, as only a Chris-
tian father, tried in the fire of affliction, can
comfort.
With all this wealth of love and affection,
there is none of that weakness which so often
blinds parents to the faults of their children.
Even little Mili has a will of her own. He
calls her "a little firecracker," and tells her
228
M^vtinQt anb iFamtlp Htfe
parents that she, before she left the home of
the grandparents, had become much more
tractable. In a letter, dated May 4, 1860,
written on shipboard just before landing at
Hamburg, he tells his wife that their daugh-
ter Lenchen ought no longer be permitted to
participate in the games of the pupils. He
writes to Johannes Walther, his nephew, and
discusses his reading, warning him against
the unwholesome tendencies of certain
dramatists and novelists. He has a watch-
ful eye upon his two sons, Ferdinand and
Constantin; corrects and guides and advises.
It may be doubted that he was fully satisfied
with Constantin's choice of a profession.
Ferdinand studied theology; Constantin be-
came a miller. He says that he was content
to have the one help people procure bread
for the body while the other offered them the
bread from heaven, provided they did it in
the love of God and their neighbor. He jok-
ingly speaks of seeing them before him, the
one in a white, the other in a black coat. It
will be an odd pair, he thinks. But in a letter
to his Norwegian friend Ottesen, he says:
"Ferdinand in these days goes to Brunswick,
Mo., as pastor designatus. Constantin is
now millering {muellert jetzt) in CoUins-
ville, 111., in Pick's congregation. The 'mil-
229
I^octor Carl WalUbtt
lering' does not seem to have greatly edified
him."
What was it he had written to Emilie
Buenger, when she had promised to become
his wife? "Oh, how I long that our home
may be a faithful pattern of a truly Chris-
tian family, in which God may pass in
and out, and all the children of God be
incited to praise the Father in heaven!"
This prayer was answered. As in the
home at Nazareth, there was here a sin-
cere love of God's holy word, an abun-
dance of tribulation and no lack of heavenly
comfort. When his beloved Emilie died, on
August 23, not quite two years before her
husband, Walther wrote to his children in
New York : "Her memory will be blessed as
long as there will be people who knew her.
Enemies she had none. My tears, indeed,
flowed plentifully, for what I have lost with
this my faithful helpmeet may not be put
into words. But the more I think that she,
next to God, lived and worked day and night
only for me, the more I must refuse to be-
grudge it to her that she is now entered into
her rest and that her works do follow her."
Then, with that inevitable regret which
always grips a man's heart when he has lost
the love of his youth, the helpmeet and the
230
J^rriage anb ipamtlp TLitt
companion of a lifetime, he goes on like this :
"Oh, that I had only honored her more than
I did in the press of the labors of my call-
ing! That greatly humbles me; but her
graciously looking upon me was to me a com-
forting absolution. Oh, how I rejoice soon
to see her again 1" He had not long to wait.
Walther died May 7, 1887.
231
Cijapter 17
d)e"llut|)eraner
»»
The Missouri Synod biographers and his-
torians, when describing the events that led
up to the organization of that powerful
Church body all tell how Pastor Friedrich
Wyneken, when the first copy of Der Luth-
eraner fell into his hands, joyfully exclaimed :
"Thank God, there are yet more Lutherans
in America ! This suggests several ques-
tions: What was Der Lutheraner? Who
was Friedrich Wyneken ? Why did he doubt
that there were other Lutherans in America ?
What connection was there between his read-
ing a little church paper and the founding of
the Missouri Synod?
The Lutheraner was originally what we
to-day call a "parish paper," published by
Walther with the aid of Trinity congrega-
tion, St. Louis, to serve the needs of his own
and the other Saxon congregations. Walther
was its founder and editor, and for years it
was popularly called Walther's Lutheraner.
Hochstetter has a story, unauthenticated, as
so often, according to which the publication
of this paper was prompted by the following
232
Ctje " Huttieraner '
circumstances : Walther was very ill during
the summer of 1 844. When it appeared that
he might recover he prayed God to give him
strength and means to write and publish four
numbers of such a paper in which he might
present the Lutheran Church in its true light.
During this illness he was greatly troubled be-
cause the Lutherans were much calumniated,
especially by the Baptists and Methodists.
Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that
these two denominations at that day felt it
their duty to promptly "convert" and "Amer-
icanize" all German and Scandinavian im-
migrants. Accordingly, they simply denied
the Church of the Reformation any right to
exist in this country, and through their
church papers (especially the Chris tlicher
Apologete, edited by Doctor Nast, of Cincin-
nati) bitterly attacked its most precious
teachings and usages. Guenther points out
the essential fact when he says : "Now the
time came when Walther's labors were to ex-
tend to wider, aye, to the widest circles."
This could only be accomplished through an
aggressive use of printers' ink and in God's
wise providence this little parish paper was
to become the means to that end.
Walther, speaking of the origin of this
paper, first describes existing conditions, and
233
Poctor Carl Walt^tx
then goes on to say: "This finally ripened
in us in association with several other Luth-
eran pastors, who had emigrated with us, a
resolve to publish a little paper, which, under
the frank, honest name, Der Lutheraner,
was to serve our dear Church according to
local needs, as God would thereto grant His
grace. The prospects for the existence of
such a paper were very, very dark. Our im-
migrant congregations were still exceedingly
poor and under the necessity of bringing al-
most impossible offerings in order to enjoy
the benefit of properly ordered and well-
supplied Evangelical Lutheran congrega-
tions. That they alone should secure the ex-
istence of the paper could hardly be expected,
and otherwise we had almost no acquaint-
ance and connection with pastors and con-
gregations. We dared send the paper only
to two, both at present at the head of the so-
called Saxon congregations as Synodical offi-
cers, W. and S. Our expectations, or, at least,
our pretensions, did not extend any further
than to carry about as many papers into
wider circles as were necessary to present an
unmistakable public testimony as to what
the Lutheran Church and what its doctrine
really is" (Lutheraner, Vol. 14). To which
we must add: One has only to read the
234
'Ct)e"1tuti)eraner"
Lutheran Observer of those days to be con-
vinced that such "unmistakable public testi-
mony" was not being presented by that
paper, which, while not an official publica-
tion, nevertheless professed to speak for the
vast majority of Lutherans in America.
Another noteworthy circumstance in connec-
tion with the Lutheraner, was this : Walther,
with true pastoral wisdom, discussed this,
like all other undertakings, with his congre-
gation and his ministerial brethren. This
was no doubt one of his reasons for working
out a Vorlage, or plan, describing the pur-
pose, the norm and the character of the pro-
posed publication. With true German thor-
oughness, he, under three heads, in sixteen
sub-heads, elaborately sets forth just what
this paper is to be. If we were to briefly
summarize its purpose, we would quote points
2 and 3 : "It is to prove that it (the Luth-
eran Church) is the true Church of Christ,
not a sect." "It is to unite the divided mem-
bers of the Lutheran Church, to recall those
that are fallen away, and to prove that our
Church has not become extinct, indeed, never
can become extinct." Consequently "Every
article must stand the test of the Holy Script-
ures and the Symbols of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church."
235
J^ottor Carl l©altfter
It is the same principle he is always reit-
erating : Unity through the truth unto union
in the truth. Consequently, "The character
of this paper is to be candid and positive ; it
shall show no false pliability, never sacrifice
the smallest truth to love and to peace" ; but
"It shall breathe a spirit of love and forbear-
ance ; it shall deplore and instruct rather than
thunder and lighten; it shall be firmly held
that the Church invisible is everywhere pres-
ent." Surely, there can be no quarrel with
such a program, and if the Lutheraner, the
official organ of the Missouri Synod, is to-
day the most widely circulated Lutheran
church paper in America, if not in the world,
it owes its wonderful success to its faithful
adherence to the principles laid down by
Walther in this Vorlage, or prospectus,
which was first presented to Trinity Church,
St. Louis, in a meeting held June 3, 1844.
The congregation unanimously approved the
plan and pledged its supporf. In a meeting
held on August 12, many of the members
promised to subscribe for two copies each,
and the congregation agreed to pay a balance
of $4.68, needed to defray the cost of the
first number, and to assume responsibility
for any future deficits. And so on September
1, 1844, the first number appeared, with the
236
'€tt"JLut^ttamt"
motto, "God's word and Luther's doctrine
pure, shall to eternity endure," and the
avowed purpose of "uniting the divided mem-
bers of the Lutheran Church, to recall those
that are fallen away, and to prove that our
Church has not become extinct ; indeed, never
can become extinct"; in short, "to prove
that it is the true Church of Christ, not a
sect."
This was new talk in the Lutheran Church
of America in the year of grace 1844. In
1 843 a book was printed at No. 7 S. Liberty
Street, Baltimore, Md., at "The Publication
Rooms of the Evangelical Lutheran Church,"
with a "Recommendation," dated May 19,
1843, signed by more than two dozen of
its most prominent ministers, who say that
they believe it to contain "a correct state-
ment of the general views of the Lutheran
Church in the United States." The book
was a reprint of "a series of numbers re-
cently published in the Lutheran Observer,
on the question, "Why are you a Lutheran?"
by the Rev. B. Kurtz, D.D. And how does
the author answer this all important ques-
tion ? Briefly stated, by arguing that I have
the same right to be a Lutheran that any
other man has to be a member of some other
denomination. In other words, by making
237
i^octor Carl Wal^tt
the Lutheran Church a denomination among
denominations, a sect among sects, and
weakly pleading for tolerance of his views
on the part of other and stronger denomina-
tions and sects. No wonder the Reforma-
tion Church in this country was losing its
children by thousands upon thousands. Why
should they remain faithful to a Church
which had only "views" and no convictions,
whose champions were apologizing for the
manifest absurdity of her doctrines and sub-
stituting "Definite Platforms" for her Con-
fessions of Faith? What was to hold them?
But here comes a man who gives another
answer to this question: "Why are you a
Lutheran?" He says: "Because the Lutheran
Church is the true Church of Christ, and not
a sect." That has a different ring. If I am con-
vinced of that truth I cannot be anything else
than a Lutheran. No wonder Wyneken ex-
claimed: "Thank God, there are yet more
Lutherans in America I" A missionary and
member of the Pennsylvania Ministerium,
and thus of the General Synod, he wanted
his own Church body to give answer to this
question in the same unequivocal fashion.
When it failed or refused to do so, he was
glad to find somebody that did.
But who was Friedrich Konrad Dietrich
238
Ctje " Uutfjerantr '
Wyneken, and what was his connection with
Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther? Born
May 13, 1810, in Hannover, Germany, he
studied theology at Goettingen and Halle,
and came to America in 1838, landing in
Baltimore, where he made the acquaintance
of Pastor Johann Haesbert, who served a
congregation which had separated from Zion
Church, once served by Doctor Daniel Kurtz.
Through Haesbert, Wyneken received a
commission from the Mission Board of the
Pennsylvania Ministerium to gather the
scattered German Protestants of Indiana
into congregations. His energetic self-sacri-
ficing labors in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan,
form a magnificent chapter in the home mis-
sion history of our Church. Gifted with the
North German talent for organization, he
became the spiritual father of dozens of con-
gregations. In 1841, with the permission of
his congregation at Fort Wayne, Ind., which
he had made his headquarters, he went to
Germany to call for men to assist him to
shepherd the Lutheran multitudes of the
new fatherland. He organized the Mission-
ary Society for North America at Dresden,
Saxony, and succeeded in securing the enthu-
siastic interest of Pfarrer Loehe, of Neuen-
dettelsau, Bavaria, for his work. Upon his
239
I^octor Carl U^altfier
return to America, he again plunges into his
work, keeping up his correspondence with
the Church at home, urging and begging for
help. In 1844 Pastor Haesbert left Balti-
more to go to South America. Wyneken be-
came his successor, and was installed March
9, 1845, by Daniel Kurtz. Two months later,
in May, 1845, at a meeting of the Gen-
eral Synod at Philadelphia, Wyneken urged
that one of two things be done to clear
that Synod of the charge of having forsaken
the doctrine of the Lutheran Church : Either
submit the books and writings of the Doctors
Kurtz and Schmucker to such recognized
Lutheran theologians as the Doctors Rudel-
bach and Harless for examination; or to re-
pudiate these books and the false doctrines
they contained. The General Synod did
neither, whereupon Wyneken went back to
Baltimore and promptly withdrew to stand
alone. He had already gone through similar
experiences in "the Synod of the West,"
where, for lack of arguments, they smiled
at his poor English. Nothing daunted,
Wyneken simply told them: "You have
heard so much poor stuff in good English
that you can well stand hearing something
good in poor English" ; which was no doubt
correct.
240
Cie"1tutticraner"
On his way to Baltimore Wyneken stopped
at Pomeroy, Ohio, to meet a man who had
attracted his attention by writing certain ar-
ticles for the Lutherische Kirchenzeitung,
published by Friedrich Schmidt, at Pittsburgh,
Pa. It was Doctor W. Sihler, who, having at-
tended a military school with Von Moltke,
studied philosophy and philology, traveled
and taught at Dresden, Saxony, came to
America, at the instance of Pastor Loehe,
to serve his Lord as a preacher of the gospel.
He landed at New York in 1843, where he
visited Pastor Demme. In Baltimore, where
he was the guest of Pastor Haesbert, he
made the acquaintance of Doctor B. Kurtz
and Doctor John G. Morris. He traveled
to Columbus, Ohio, where he visited the
Theological Seminary and the Professors
Schaefer and Winkler. Then, in December,
1843, he began to preach in a German min-
ing settlement at Pomeroy. Pastor Adam
Ernst and Pastor G. Buerger, the first of the
men sent over by Loehe, landed in New
York September, 26, 1842. Both were mem-
bers of the Ohio Synod. Not wishing to
stand alone, Sihler received ordination, after
he had refused to permit himself to be
licensed to preach, and became a member of
this body. But not for long. When he, like
241
i^octor Carl Walt^tt
Wyneken, at Fort Wayne and Philadelphia,
began to urge greater doctrinal and j)astoral
faithfulness upon the Synod, he soon found
himself in conscience and duty bound to sever
his connection with it, which he, with seven
other ministers and one teacher, did through
formal written protest, dated Cleveland,
Ohio, September 18, 1845. Wyneken was
present at this Cleveland meeting, and it was
here that the plan of forming a Synodical
organization, together with Walther and the
Saxons, was first broached.
Sihler had come to Fort Wayne, July IS,
1845, where he took charge of Wyneken's
former congregation, and the two students,
Jaebker and Frincke, left as a legacy by that
energetic missionary. The following year
(1846) Loehe sent over eleven young men
with a teacher. Candidate Carl August W.
Roebbelin, and funds for the establishment
of a missionary institute under direction of
Doctor Sihler. On November 12, of the
same year, three more young men came over,
the Candidates Walter, Fick and Francke.
This marks the beginning of the so-called
"Practical Seminary," for the training of
what Loehe called "Nothelfer," "Helpers
in Need." In a letter to Pastor Brunn, dated
March 2, 1861, Walther says of the men
242
'^Tfje " Uutticraner '
trained at this school: "Our so-called prac-
tically trained preachers are the best element
of our Ministerium. They not infrequently,
in preaching, in the care of souls, and in the
government of congregations, surpass those
equipped with learned sciences."
Meanwhile an entire missionary congrega-
tion had come over under the leadership of
the pastors August Craemer and Friedrich
Lochner, to establish a colony on the Chip-
pewa reservations of the Saginaw Valley,
Mich., and teach the Lutheran doctrine of
justification by faith to these poor heathen.
Pastor Hattstaedt, of Monroe, welcomed
them, and they founded a settlement on the
Cass River, which they named Frankenmuth,
after their Bavarian home. They tell an in-
teresting story of these Franconian colonies.
They called the first settlement "Franken-
muth," for it took courage to cross the ocean
and settle in the backwoods swamps of Mich-
igan. In their privations and struggles they
needed comfort, so they called the second set-
tlement "Frankentrost." Then Loehe sent
more people and help, so they founded
"Frankenhilf." Then all went well, and
they called the next settlement "Franken-
lust," which means "the joy of the Franks."
There is a fifth settlement, southwest of
243
i^octor Carl Walt^tv
"Frankenlust," which they call "Amelith."
Just why nobody knows, and to-day its in-
habitants are jokingly called "Z)?V Amale-
kitcr" ("the Amalekites" ) .
The pastors of these missionary congre-
gations joined the Michigan Synod. Their
instructions forbade their serving "mixed
congregations" (Lutheran and Reformed),
and they had been pledged on the Symbols
of the Lutheran Church. Consequently their
stay in the Michigan Synod was brief, and
on June 20, 1846, the four pastors, Craemer,
Lochner, Hattstaedt and Trautmann, for-
mally severed their relations with that body.
Loehe had also instructed the men he trained
and sent over to "seek contact with the faith-
ful emigrant Saxon pastors and their congre-
gations, who had been freed from Stephan-
ism." The Luther aner, which they circu-
lated in their congregations, was the best
of all means for the carrying out of these
instructions.
Besides these Franks in Michigan, the
Plattdeutch in Indiana and Ohio, the Hes-
sians in Baltimore, and the Berliners in New
York City, there was another group of
Lutherans in Western New York and Wis-
consin, to whom Walther and the Saxons
might look, not only for subscribers to their
244
<€tt"JLni^ttantt"
Lutheraner, but for a cordial welcome of
all efforts looking toward the establish-
ment of closest fraternal relations. They
had many things in common. Both had
manfully contended for the truth against
unbelieving Church authorities at home.
These Prussian Lutherans had even en-
dured direct persecution. Their leader,
Pastor Andreas Grabau, had been twice im-
prisoned for resisting the establishment of
the "Prussian Union," with its non-com-
mittal "Agende." Both had emigrated to
America to preserve the faith once delivered
to the saints for themselves and their poster-
ity, the possession of which had been guar-
anteed these Prussians by their old Bugen-
hagen "Kirchenordnung."
Grabau left Germany with one thousand
souls eight months after the Saxons. He
was followed by the Pastors G. A. Kinder-
mann, L. Krause and H. von Rohr, with
other emigrants. They founded strong set-
tlements in and near Buffalo, N. Y., and in
Wisconsin. They largely outnumbered the
Saxons, and Hochstetter, himself a member
of the Synod they organized in 1845, very
correctly says that, in the judgment of man,
a union between these Prussians and the
Missouri Saxons would have been of in-
245
J^octor atari Walt^tv
calculable blessing to the Church at large.
But It was not to be. Instead, an un-
fortunate doctrinal controversy sprang up,
which harassed pastors and congregations
for twenty-five years. Certain occurrences,
chiefly caused by the lack of ministers among
these Prussian Lutherans, prompted Pastor
Grabau, in 1 840, to write a "pastoral letter"
( "Hirtenbrief " ) to these congregations. He
sent a copy to the Saxons, requesting a
Gutachten, or theological opinion. These
found in Grabau's "Hirtenbrief" doctrines
and principles emphasizing the self-same
hierarchical tendencies which "Bishop"
Stephan had so effectively used to tyrannize
his misguided followers. The Saxons did
not immediately reply. How could they?
They had troubles of their own. The Alten-
burg debate was not held until April, 1841.
Finally, when action could not longer be de-
layed, for Grabau proposed the joint found-
ing of a theological seminary, and through
Pastor Krause requested a formal statement
of their position by the Saxons, Pastor Gott-
hold Loeber, who, as the eldest of the Mis-
souri pastors, had had the matter in hand,
wrote a considerate, carefully worded, yet
thorough reply, to Pastor Grabau, under
date of July 3, 1843. This matter had
246
'3rt)e"1Luttieraner"
caused Walther and his associates much con-
cern. It was to cause them more in the
future. Walther later said: "Our contro-
versy with Buffalo is a cross which would
again and again almost crush us to the
ground." (Letter to Brunn, 1861.) For
the moment the gist of what they said in
their "Gutachten" of the "Hirtenbrief," was
this : "It would seem to us on the one hand,
with respect to the so much emphasized old
Kirchenordnungen, the essential and the un-
essential, the divine and the human, have
been confused, and therewith Christian lib-
erty curtailed; on the other hand, however,
more ascribed to the ministerial office than
belongs to it, and therewith the spiritual
priesthood of the congregations forced into
the background." For people who had just
passed through their experiences, this was
more than mild. Grabau did not think so.
He promptly accused the "Missourians"
(they owe this name to him) of "errors" and
"a lax, unchurchly spirit." The fight was on,
and it was to be fought with increasing bitter-
ness to the end. Walther sums up the result
like this: "First we here had to be led by
our own errors to the verge of temporal and
spiritual ruin, in order that, saved by God's
interference without our doing, we then, that
247
I^octor Carl ^©altijer
we may say so, as burnt children might the
more immovably protest against these same
errors appearing elsewhere" {Lutheraner,
Vol. 14).
Now, let us sum up the situation as it ap-
peared in 1844, when Walther's Luther-
aner was issued "to unite the divided mem-
bers of the Church, to recall those that are
fallen away, and to prove that our Church
has not become extinct; indeed, never can
become extinct."
Graebner in his "History of the Lutheran
Church in America" (what a pity he did not
live to complete his work ! ) , speaking of the
year 1821, sums it up like this: "Thus there
was in America an Evangelical Lutheran
General Synod, which was neither Evangelical
Lutheran nor a General Synod; beside it a
considerable number of un-Lutheran Luth-
erans, and only a few pastors and congrega-
tions with whom a real, even if, so far as a
knowledge of Lutheran truth is concerned,
a weak Lutheranism struggled for an exist-
ence." A rather sweeping characterization, 'tis
true ; but it may, without any lack of charity
or veracity, be applied to September 1, 1844,
the date of the first issue of Walther's Luth-
eraner, as it was to March, 1821, with which
date Graebner closes the first volume of his
248
Ct)e"1lutt)eraner'
work. With this difference, there were some
few people crying, "The sword of the Lord
and Gideon!" And Gideon's name was
Walther.
249
chapter 18
^pnobical (Organisation
A strong man always surrounds himself
with strong men. A weak man, who can
neither brook criticism nor contradiction,
usually gathers around himself "me too"
weaklings, who stand ready to applaud all
of his sayings and doings. Invariably this is
the source of his undoing.
The men who answered the clarion call
of fValther's Lutheraner, Wyneken, Sihler,
Ernst, Buerger, Lochner and Craemer, were
anything but "me too" weaklings. Their
protests and withdrawals from the several
Church bodies which refused to receive their
testimony, amply proves that. If further
proof were needed, it might be found in their
voluminous correspondence with Walther
preliminary to the organization of the Mis-
souri Synod. Walther, in a letter to Brohm,
dated March 8, 1846, speaks of his cor-
respondence. He says: From time to time
I must write to Keyl, Loeber, Goenner,
Wege, Geyer, Schieferdecker, Fuerbringer,
Sihler, Wyneken, Ernst, and several other
pastors in Indiana and Ohio, less known to
250
^pnobual ttiitj) 2^uttalo
When David says, "The zeal of thine
house hath eaten me up," he is not thinking
so much of the labors he performed in his
Lord's cause as of the controversies and
contentions he endured because of his love
of his Lord's word. He tells us this himself,
for the whole text runs: "The zeal of thine
house hath eaten me up ; and the reproaches
of them that reproached Thee are fallen
upon me" (Ps. 69:9). He says the same
thing in the 119th Psalm: "My zeal hath
consumed me, because mine enemies have
forgotten Thy words" (v. 139). That was
the thing that hurt, the forgetting of his
Lord's word.
Walther never really complains of the
burden of his labors any more than Paul
does when he apologizes for telling us, among
other things, that "the care of all the
churches came upon him daily." To be sure,
he speaks of his work; usually at the close of
a letter, when asking pardon for a seeming
inattention or an imaginary briefness. He
there may say; "Please be content for this
266
Controber£(p luttlb S^uffalo
time with this little. At my return after a
lengthy absence a whole mountain of to be
disposed of business lies before me" (Vol. I,
p. 135) . But he does complain most bitterly
of the unending controversies forced upon
him by people who considered themselves to
be the only faithful Lutherans and him a
heretic and false prophet. That hurt. And
so he writes to Stephanus Keyl: "I am
often so tired of the conflict, that I am
strongly tempted to bury my sword and
shield, if no one wants it; and to spend
my life, so much as the Lord of life and
death may yet grant me, meditando like
Jerome at the crib of Bethlehem. I am con-
sidered contentious ; if I were rightly known,
it would soon be seen that I rather shun con-
tention, and that only God's command im-
pels me to remain under arms." There is a
nice alliteration in the German, which it is
impossible to preserve. He says: "Man
haelt mich fuer streitsuechtig; ich bin viel-
mehr streitfluechtig." Still, his controver-
sies were unceasing. For this reason, it
might be said of Walther, as It was of
Luther, "He was the best hated man in the
Church of his day." And yet. like Luther,
no man ever more highly appreciated true
catholicity and hated sectarian separatism
267
i^octor Carl Wall^tt
and excluslveness. In his first letter to Sihler,
written in 1845, he says that even under
Stephan their one aim had been to give evi-
dence of the most perfect faithfulness to the
true Lutheran Church, and that nothing had
made them miss this more than their stub-
born exdusiveness. "The more dangerous
and pernicious this became for us, the more
we long for a most careful preservation of
true catholicity and an avoiding of all sepa-
ratism" (Vol. I, p. 6). He writes to Brohm
in 1846: "I hate the sectarian exclusion and
self-inclusion {Abschliessen und Sichein-
schliessen) of the Grabau-minded" (Vol. I,
p. 7). He resents Grabau's having declared
himself and his adherents to be the Church,
when he calls the Synod he organized, "The
Synod of the Lutheran Church emigrated
from Prussia" (Vol. I, p. 88). This posi-
tion reminds him of Stephan's teaching, and
he does not hesitate to say: "Grabau with
his adherents is nothing but the second, unim-
proved edition of Stephan and his adherents"
(Vol. I, p. 88). Convinced of that fact,
controversy was inevitable.
It was not sought. Walther had other
things to do besides looking beyond his own
congregation for work and trouble. For one
thing, after his return home as President of
268
Controbetrsip iuttti S^uffalo
the newly-organized Synod, a most disas-
trous fire devastated a large section of St.
Louis. Breaking out on the evening of As-
cension Day, it laid waste several of the best
streets of the city, destroyed 640 houses and
27 river steamers tied up at the wharves, de-
manded its toll of human life, and caused
unspeakable suffering among the unfortunate
people who had lost their homes and prop-
erty. In his sermon, preached in Exaudi
Sunday, Walther exclaims: "And who can
count the tears and sighs which this calamity
has pressed and will still press! Oh, and
several dear members of our congregation
also belong to the sorely smitten, who look
with tears upon the ash heaps into which their
homes and their possessions have been trans-
formed."
Walther, with Trinity congregation, was
at this time organizing the "Immanuel's Dis-
trict," and building a second church, which
was dedicated Sexagesima Sunday, 1848,
purchasing a cemetery, establishing a mission
school, which afterwards became the "Con-
cordia District" (now Kreuz) ; purchasing
a fine lot for a new school building in the
"Trinity District"; taking a most active in-
terest in the affairs of Concordia College,
Perry County; providing the salary for its
269
i^octor Carl 1©aUfjci:
professor, Rector Goenner ; regularly editing
and issuing the Lutheraner, which became the
property of Synod with the publication of
its fourth volume. Since Walther remained
editor, his labors were not lightened. If any-
thing, they were made a little more bur-
densome by the suggestions and criticisms
of well-intentioned but inexperienced people
(Report of Second Convention, p. 25),
who fully exercised the privileges suggested
by the addition to the title, "Published by
the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Mis-
souri, Ohio and other States, edited by C. F.
W. Walther." The congregation published
a new Church hymnal in 1847, to replace
the various eighteenth century collections in
the hands of the people. The book was
edited by Walther in association with other
Missouri pastors, and printed by H. Ludwig
and Co., 70 Vesey Street, New York.
Walther writes to Brohm: "We have
selected the hymnal with great pains and
many sighs. God grant it may be worthy
of use by the congregation of the faithful!
I am very anxious for your judgment" (Let-
ters, Vol. I, p. 39) . The St. Louis Gesammt-
gemeinde generously presented this hymnal
to the Synod in 1862, and it is being used by
the "congregation of the faithful" to this
270
Controberflip \oitb 2^uffalo
day. A revision has never even been sug-
gested, which certainly says much for the
correctness of the principles followed by
Walther and his co-workers in its prepara-
tion. (Se» Guenther, p. 74.) The first
"Agende" (Book of Worship) was pub-
lished by authority of Synod in 1856. It is
a compilation of the old orthodox Saxon
orders. Loehe's "Agende," for which Fried-
rich Hommel wrote his "Liturgie Luther-
ischer Gemeinde Gottesdienste," in 1851,
was used by the Michigan, Ohio and Indiana
congregations. Hommel and the fourth
part of Layritz's "Kern des Lutherischen
Kirchengesangs," 1853, are the two sources
of the worship music of the Missouri Synod.
Loehe's "Agende" was gradually supplanted
by the "Agende" published with the authority
of Synod. Trinity congregation entertained
the Synod during its second convention, held
June 21 to July 1, 1848. The third conven-
tion was held at Fort Wayne, June 6-16,
1 849. Walther writes Sihler, the Vice-Presi-
dent, on May 10, 1849, that his coming to
the meeting is most improbable, because of
an epidemic of cholera in St. Louis. Condi-
tions must have been frightful. Entire fam-
ilies died out, and it was difficult to get
wagons to remove the dead. Walther man-
271
©ottor Carl l©altt>er
aged to reach Fort Wayne before the close
of the sessions, and then hastened back to
St. Louis, where he and Vicar Buenger
labored day and night among the afflicted
and terrified people, playing the part of faith-
ful pastors, as described by Luther in his
tract, "If One may Flee Death?" written
when the pest raged in Wittenberg. Walther
issued a reprint of this tract, and regularly
held services of intercession and prayer on
Wednesday afternoons with his congrega-
tion during the entire period of sore trial
and distress.
Walther's letters discussing and ordering
Synodical affairs, together with the reports
of the conventions of 1847, 1848 and 1849,
give us a faint idea of the enormous amount
of labor which devolved upon him through
his being President of the new Church body,
now growing by leaps and bounds. At the
second convention the Synod counted fifty
ministers and five school teachers as mem-
bers, among them men like Wyneken, of Bal-
timore, Md. ; Brauer, of Addison, 111., and
Brohm, of New York. At the third conven-
tion sixteen congregations, thirteen ministers
and three teachers were received. The Synod
began to take on a cosmopolitan character.
Unlike the Pennsylvania Ministerium, where
272
Controbersip tottti S^uffalo
the Wuertembergers predominated, or the
New York Ministerium, where the Platt-
deutsch made up the bulk of the congrega-
tion, the Missouri Synod, from the first, had
a representation of Lutherans from the vari-
ous sections of the fatherland. Among its
ministers the North German element consid-
erably outnumbered the Saxons, and the Uni-
versity of Goettingen was at least as well
represented as Leipzig. As compared with
other Synods, it contained a proportionately
large number of splendidly educated men,
well equipped to man its two college facul-
ties and lead its aggressive missionary ope-
rations. True, its congregations were, as a
rule, quite small and almost invariably poor.
The three strongest congregations were St.
Louis, with 2945 souls; Baltimore, with
1084, and Fort Wayne, with 1066. But it
had set the stakes of its house in the strate-
gic points of the Middle West, Chicago, St.
Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, etc. ; it had its
outposts in the East; it was looking toward
Iowa and Oregon, lengthening its cords and
stretching the curtains of its habitation al-
most to the breaking point, enthusiastically
following the lead of Walther, its teacher,
organizer and missionary. Surely, these peo-
ple, with their President, had enough to oc-
273
{doctor Carl Waltfitv
cupy them without seeking doctrinal contro-
versies. Besides, as the first volumes of the
Lutheraner show, they were under the con-
stant necessity of defending the "form of
sound words" committed to them and their
newly organized congregations against what
Doctor W. J. Mann calls "the delusions of
Methodism."
But controversy came. Originally di-
rected against Pastor Loeber and the other
Saxon pastors, after the organization of the
Synod and the election of Walther as Presi-
dent, the attack was transferred to them, and
a most bitter warfare waged for twenty-five
years, or until a majority of the Buffalo
Synod pastors, on March 2, 1867, joined the
Missouri Synod. Hochstetter, who was the
Diakonns of Pastor Grabau, the "Senior
Ministerii" of the Buffalo Synod, in his
"History of the Missouri Synod," a book of
480 pages, devotes about 100 pages to a
description of this controversy. He has not
over-estimated its importance for the Church
of this country. A glance at the doctrines
stated, the principles enunciated, and the
practices defended in the "Hirtenbrief"
("Pastoral Letter"), issued by Pastor Gra-
bau, in 1840, "To the Brethren and Mem-
bers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
274
Controberfiip tottlj S^uffalo
Buffalo, New York, Milwaukee, Eden and
Little Hamburg, Albany, Portage, Canada,"
copies of which were sent to the Saxon pas-
tors of Missouri for their examination and
approval, does not merely show that these
men (Loeber, Gruber, Keyl and Walther)
were justified in protesting against "the as-
sertion of hierarchical principles within the
Lutheran Church." It shows that by thus
protesting against "the assertion of these
hierarchical principles," until they were for-
ever silenced, they rendered the entire
Church of America an immense service. Had
the movement led by Grabau prevailed with
any considerable number of Lutherans in this
country, the representatives of the several
Synodical bodies would not now be meeting in
free conference "for the promotion of Chris-
tian unity through doctrinal discussion based
upon the inspired word of God and the
Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church." If we were meeting at all, it would
be for the discussion of holy orders, whether
or not the succession of our bishops, pro-
cured through Scandinavia was of equal
validity with the Anglican, and if the ques-
tion of intention affected ordination. We
would be solemnly discussing the ornaments
rubric of the first Prayer Book of Edward,
275
i^ottor Carl Waltlitx
and attaching more importance to eucharistic
candles than to the doctrine of conversion.
We would have an extreme high Church
party, making salvation dependent upon out-
ward membership in the visible Lutheran
Church, as represented by its clergy, and in-
sisting that the sacraments owe their validity
and efficacy to ordination received from the
Church thus constituted. We would not per-
mit the local congregation and its pastors
to deal with "open and profligate evil livers,"
but require them to submit all questions of
discipline to the "Senior Ministerii," or
bishop, as representing the Church, for ad-
judication. We would be demanding simple,
unquestioning obedience on the part of the
laity to the Church, not only in things spir-
itual, but in things temporal, so far as they
are not opposed to the Word. Whether
they are or not must again be decided by the
clergy. In a word, we would have had an
Oxford movement within the Lutheran
Church flirting with Rome, after the style of
Bishop Stephan, who, when the Romanists
publicly dedicated a church in St. Louis,
shortly after the arrival of the emigrant col-
ony, required the Saxon pastors and candi-
dates to attend and carefully observe the
ceremonial performed by Bishop Rosati, in
276
Controtierfep ioitb S^uffalo
order that they might know how to conduct
themselves when it came to dedicating a
church of their own.
Since extremes always provoke opposite
extremes, this assumption of high Church
superiority could not have failed to give
force and point to those Puritan tendencies
which aimed at the establishment of an
"American Lutheran Church," as opposed to
a "Lutheran Church in America." The doc-
trinal looseness which led to the publication
of "The Definite Platform" would never
have stopped with the enumeration of "five
errors" in the Augsburg Confession. It
would have rejected all confessions of faith,
and finally made its appeal to the principle
laid down by Zwangli, when he insisted that
God does not require us to believe anything
unreasonable. The lack of Lutheran self-
consciousness, which made men put the
mourners' bench in the place of the altar,
substitute the revival system for catechetical
instruction, "new measures" for time-hon-
ored practices and usages, individualistic
emotionalism for all forms of worship,
would never have rested until it had rooted
out stock and branch every confessional cere-
mony of the Church, in order to conform,
even in outward appearance, with the sur-
277
i^octor Carl D^alttier
rounding denominations. Our splendid Com-
mon Service would never have been prepared,
much less adopted and used by any consider-
able portion of those Church bodies to whom
the credit for its production must be grate-
fully awarded. What is worse, the forma-
tive principle of the Reformation, "that
God's word is the sole and absolute author-
ity, and rule of faith, and of life," would
have gone by the board. If, as Doctor
Krauth so correctly and emphatically says,
"No man, without accepting this principle,
can be truly Evangelical, Protestant or Luth-
eran," then, we must ask if this "assertion of
hierarchical principles" had prevailed, what
would have become of the Church In Amer-
ica? Let Walther answer the question:
"Meine Befuerchtung geht dahin, dass diese
Preussen eine Sekte werden wollen" ("I
fear that these Prussians aim to become a
sect"). (Letters, Vol. I, p. 18.) Succeeding
in that, would they not aim to make every
other part of the Church a sect? And would
that not mean that the Church in America,
as a true Church visible, had ceased to be?
No wonder Walther said In his prospectus
of the Lutheraner: "It Is to prove that It"
(the Lutheran Church) "is the true Church
of Christ, not a sect." "It is to unite the dl-
278
Controber£({> \oitb 2^uffaIo
vided members of the Lutheran Church, to
recall those that are fallen away, and to
prove that our Church has not and never can
become extinct." He wrote the same thing
into the constitution of the Missouri Synod,
when, in Chap. I, 114, this was stated to be a
ground for its organization: "The preser-
vation and cultivation of the unity of the
pure Confession (Eph. 4: 3-6; 1 Cor. 1 : 10),
and the common warding off of separatistic
and sectarian confusion (Rom. 16: 17)."
As he wrote to Sihler: "The most careful
preservation of true catholicity and an avoid-
ing of all separatism."
This was the real issue. That we have
not overstated it, appears from the official
seal of the Buffalo Synod, which, in allusion
to Revelation 12, showed a woman fleeing
from a dragon into the wilderness. Accord-
ing to Pastor Grabau's interpretation,
America was the wilderness to which the
Church had fled before the dragon of the
"Prussian Union." Hochstetter's account
of the "Buffalo Colloquium," held Novem-
ber 20, 1866, shows how this narrow concep-
tion influenced all the theological thinking of
Grabau's adherents. Finally the public meet-
ing, so long sought by Missouri, and pre-
vented by the "Senior Ministerii" of Buffalo,
279
i^octor Carl Wali^tt
was arranged. Representatives of the two
Synods met face to face and discussed the
doctrine (1) of the Church, (2) of the min-
isterial office, (3) of excommunication, (4)
of the power of the ministerial office with
respect to adiaphora, and (5) of ordina-
tion. Full agreement was reached with
eleven members of the Buffalo Synod, who,
thereupon, joined the Missouri Synod. Gra-
bauism, "the assertion of hierarchical prin-
ciples within the Church of America," was
dead. The principle of catholicity, so
briefly and magnificently stated in Article
VII, of the Augsburg Confession, was re-
asserted, never again, let us hope, to be at-
tacked by Romanizing tendencies within the
Reformation Church. And, let us add, may
the words Walther wrote to Brunn, in 1861,
more and more become true : "Although I
especially must suffer heavily through this
conflict, I more and more see that this con-
flict, too, instead of serving to hinder the
kingdom of God, which always appears to be
the case, must only serve to its advancement"
(Letters, Vol. I, p. 161), "the advancement
of true catholicity and the avoiding of all
sectarian separatism."
280
chapter 20
Hoefje anb tfte aotua ^v^oh
On the eve of the fourth convention of
Synod, Walther wrote Lochner: "I look
forward to our approaching Synodical pro-
ceedings with trembling heart, still with firm
confidence in God's help" (Vol. I, p. 72).
In his opening address he explains his fears :
"Our Synod ... is approaching the sever-
est trial which the Church can ever experi-
ence, a trial in comparison with which those
of sanguinary persecution are to be ac-
counted small; in short, it is this — tempta-
tion to false doctrine." He was not thinking
of Grabau alone, for after describing Roman-
izing tendencies in the Church of Germany
and America, which heretofore had had lit-
tle influence upon the Missouri Synod, he goes
on to say: "Most recently, however, we
have finally been drawn into serious conflict
with the same from two sides." The one
side was Grabau and Buffalo. The other side
was Loehe and Iowa.
If the break with the emigrant Prussians
hurt, the break with Loehe hurt a hundred
fold, for J. C. Wilhelm Loehe, Pfarrer at
281
J^octor Carl ^©altljer
Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, from the day when
Wyneken, at his visit to Germany, in 1841-
42, had turned his sympathetic interest to the
dire needs of the Lutherans in America, was
the most loyal and generous friend of the
cause of confessional Lutheranism in this
country. He not only sent over men to shep-
herd the scattered children of the Reforma-
tion Church, among them men with a univer-
sity training like Sihler, Craemer and Schal-
ler, but entire missionary congregations. At
the Fort Wayne meeting, in 1846, prelimi-
nary to the organization of the Missouri
Synod, there were a dozen Loehe men pres-
ent. Others were being sent over, so that
the new Synodlein received a total of eighty-
four pastors through Loehe's efforts. (See
Neve, "A Brief History," etc.). Loehe es-
tablished the so-called "Practical Seminary,"
or Missionary Institute, at Fort Wayne, most
liberally supported it, and for the simple ask-
ing, by formal deed, dated September 8,
1847, presented the institution to the newly
organized Synod, with several most accepta-
ble conditions, the first of which read : "That
it forever serve the Lutheran Church and
train ministers and shepherds for it. As the
Lutheran Church, we recognize only that
which adheres to all the Confessions of the
282
Hoete anb tl^e Slotoa ^pnob
Lutheran Book of Concord." There is no
qualification in these words. Moreover,
Loehe most generously promised his con-
tinued support to this institution, which, on
August 29, 1850, dedicated a building
erected with his help, and named "The
Wolter House," after the splendid young
teacher whom Loehe had sent over in 1846,
and who died, only thirty-one years old, of
the cholera, August 31, 1849. And now,
after all of that, at the opening of the fourth
convention of Synod, on October 3, 1850,
barely one month after the dedication of the
"Wolter House," Walther feels himself con-
strained to point out to the assembled pastors
and delegates the threatening danger of a
temptation to false doctrine approaching
from two sides. The one side was repre-
sented by Grabau, the other by Loehe, Syn-
od's greatest material benefactor. That hurt
indeed.
But what did Walther mean? How could
the man who on September 8, 1847, wrote,
"As the Lutheran Church we recognize only
that which adheres to all the Confessions of
the Lutheran Book of Concord," even be re-
motely suspected of false teaching? The
answer may be given by the word ^^Ofene
Fragen" (open questions), used to designate
283
©octor Carl Waltbtx
Loehe's attitude toward the Confessions, an
attitude determined by his position on cer-
tain other doctrines, as well as his ambitious
plans for Lutheran Church union. For
Pfarrer Loehe aimed not merely to gather
the Lutherans of America, but the Lutherans
of Australia, and of the whole world into one
general Church body. It was, therefore, but
natural that he should desire to have some
voice in the direction of Church affairs in
America, although he could not possibly have
any real knowledge of American conditions.
The constitution of seventy-two paragraphs
prepared for the Franconian congregations
of Michigan, defining with infinite detail
everything, even to the provision of christ-
lische Hebammen (Christian midwives), am-
ply proves that. Consequently, while in
the main satisfied with the doings of the
brethren in the new world, Loehe could not
but consider what he called "the strong inter-
mixing of democratic, independentistic and
congregational principles in their constitu-
tion as doubtful and deplorable." Like
Grabau and Stephan before him, Loehe
wanted ein festes Kirchenregiment (a firm
Church government). While not quite
ready to agree with Grabau, he was still less
ready to agree with the Missourians and
284
Hoelje anb tfie Jotoa ,^pnob
their teachings, as set forth in Walther's
"Kirche und Amt." The assertion of the
dignities and rights of all true believers
whom God hath made "to be kings and priests
forever" (Rev. 1:6; 1 Peter 2:9), used
with such telling force by Luther against the
pretensions of the Roman hierarchy, and
written by Walther into the constitution of
the Missouri Synod, was in Loehe's eyes
Americkanische Poebelherrschaft (Ameri-
can mob rule).
Moreover, Loehe also publicly taught and
defended certain views with respect to the
doctrine of the last things, much in vogue
among the German Pietists of the day, e.g.,
the establishment of a millennial kingdom at
Christ's second coming, with a general con-
version of all Israel after the appearance of
a personal Antichrist, etc., views which
Walther and the Missourians held to have
been rejected and condemned by Article
XVII of the Augsburg Confession. A great
stickler for liturgical forms, he went so far
as to employ a kind of extreme unction for
the sick, besides displaying an extreme fond-
ness for the institutional and conventual life
of the Church of Rome.
Pfarrer Loehe was undoutedly a far big-
ger and broader man than "Senior Min-
285
I^octor Carl Walttttt
isteril Grabau, not to speak of "Bishop"
Stephan. Still, it is peculiar that the three
men had something in common. They wanted
a "firm Church government." They had a
profound mistrust of the laity. They had a
fondness for colonization schemes. By the
way, Walthcr's most intimate friend, Fick,
with other n^en, also had a scheme of this
kind. Walther writes him : "Are you trying
to found a Lutheran republic? . . . The
Church is to be a salt of the earth; one does
not dump that into some corner, but into the
midst of the mass" (Vol. I, p. 99). Loehe,
Grabau and Stephan had an immense enthu-
siasm for correct liturgical form. In the
judgment of Deindoerfer, who wrote a his-
tory of the Lutheran Church in America,
this insistence upon form was often a hin-
drance to the growth of the Iowa Synod, or-
ganized by Loehe in 1854. But the most
dangerous was their attitude toward the
Confessions. Grabau attached as much, if
not more, importance and weight to the Pom-
meranian Kirchenordnung as to the Book
of Concord. Stephan, who urged the read-
ing of Luther and the Book of Concord
whenever his pet ideas were contradicted by
these undisputable authorities, was wont to
tell his adherents : "This must be differently
286
Hoete anb tfje Slotoa ^pnob
understood, for Luther in other places ex-
presses himself more clearly"; or, "This is
not suited to our times," etc. Loehe, who re-
fused to be bound by the entire doctrinal con-
tent of the Confessions, spoke of the neces-
sity of striving for further doctrinal develop-
ment, tried to distinguish between those parts
of the Confessions which are and are not
of binding force, etc. In each of the three
cases, there was a qualified acceptance of the
Confessions. Of the three, Grabau's posi-
tion was entitled to the most consideration,
for the Confessors of the Church had also
written its Kirchenordnungen, even though
they had never intended that they should
have the force of or be used to interpret the
Confessions. Walther, therefore, writes to
Otteson: "The Buffalo men, like ourselves,
would be strictly Lutheran; the Iowa men,
however, wish us to concede that unity and
purity of doctrine is unnecessary, and a de-
manding of it fanaticism" (Vol. II, p. 110).
Remembering that the issue was primarily
the doctrine of the Church and the ministe-
rial office, it is at once plain that the attitude
of these men toward the Confessions was de-
termined by aims they cherished and theories
they held for its organization and advance-
ment. They did not approach the Confes-
287
I^octor Carl Walfiitt
sions with an open mind. They approached
them with preconceived notions, seeking en-
dorsement of previously formed theories.
Walther writes Fuerbringer in 1867, after
the Colloquium with Iowa : "The Fritschels
. . . seem to have rummaged through
Luther and the fathers {die Alten) in gen-
eral only with the aim of finding vouchers
for their doctrine of 'Open Questions' " (Vol.
II, p. 119). Using detached quotations from
Luther and the Confessions as wax to graft
your own theories on the great body of Luth-
eran doctrine is bad business.
In God's wise providence events were so
shaped that Walther, when he approached
Luther and the Confessions, seeking light on
these questions, had no theories of his own.
Whatever theories he may have had were
swept away by Stephan's dreadful fall. In
the indescribable confusion and distress which
followed, Walther, ill in body and soul,
humbly sought an answer to the questions :
"Are we a Church?" "Am I a Christian
minister?" "Have I the right, by Christ's
command and authority, to preach the gos-
pel and administer the sacraments?" To
answer these questions he dug down to bed-
rock, the Scriptures, Luther and the Con-
fessions. He formulated his answer In the
288
Hoebe anb tt)e SQolua ^pnob
Altenburg Theses, his book on "The Voice
of Our Church on the Question of Church
and Office," and his other book, on "The
Correct Form of a Local EvangeHcal Luth-
eran Congregation Independent of the
State." of this work he writes to Sihler:
"The paper is really the practical amplifica-
tion of the principles laid down in the book
on 'The Church and the Office' (Vol. I, p.
187) . It showed that just the Lutheran doc-
trine of the Church and the Office forms the
firmest foundation upon which a particular
Church {eine Partikularkirche) may build
itself in correct form," and "that our old
faithful teachers, although they lived in a
state Church, under consistorial organiza-
tion, on the basis of their doctrine of Church,
Office, Church government, etc., did not con-
ceive of the form of a local congregation in-
dependent of the state, otherwise than it is
here found represented." He had Trinity
congregation and its organization, together
with the organization of the Misouri Synod
in mind. Stephan, Grabau and Loehe said: "It
is expedient to organize so and so. We may
do this, for Luther, the Confessions and the
Kirchenordnungen say so and so." Walther
says: "The Scriptures, the Confessions,
I^uther and our faithful old teachers say so
289
l^octor Carl Walton
and so. We must organize accordingly."
There was a difference. And this difference
expressed itself in their attitude toward the
Confessions, which brings us back to Loehe
and his "Open Questions."
That there should be any doctrinal differ-
ence between them, and especially a doctrinal
difference which might mean a disruption of
the relations which had hitherto existed be-
tween the Synod and its benefactor, filled
Walther with alarm. He was no longer
President of Synod, for when he became
Professor and President of the Altenburg
College, which was removed to St. Louis in
1849, Pastor Wyneken, of Baltimore, was
called as vicar of Trinity congregation, and
elected President of Synod at the fourth con-
vention in the fall of 1850. This convention
again, like the previous conventions, cordially
and urgently invited Pfarrer Loehe to visit
America and attend the convention of 1851.
When he found it impossible to accept the
invitation, Synod, at this convention, acting
upon a suggestion presented by the St. Louis
District Conference, the St. Louis congrega-
tion, President Wyneken, Doctor Sihler and
others, resolved to send Walther and Wyne-
ken to Neuendettelsau for a conference with
Pfarrer Loehe. Every possible effort was
290
Uoete anb tiie 3CotDa ^pnoti
to be made to remove existing differences and
avoid a possible rupture. Incidentally it was
hoped that a personal acquaintance on the
part of these two men with some of the lead-
ers of the Church in Germany might prove
to be of benefit both to America and the
fatherland.
An account of this journey and its imme-
diate results, written by Walther, was pub-
lished in the Lutheraner, Vol. 8, Nos. 13-21.
A long letter to his wife, dated Erlangen,
October 11, 1851, supplies further note-
worthy details. His meeting with Doctor
Marbach, who had been his opponent at the
Altenburg Debate, must have been most in-
teresting. Walther and Wyneken visited
Doctor Guericke in Halle, Doctor Kahnis
in Leipzig, and Doctor Harless in Dresden.
In Erlangen Walther met the friend of his
youth. Doctor Franz Delitzsch, who intro-
duced him to other members of the faculty,
the Professors Hofmann, Thomasius, Hoef-
ling and Schmid. The two delegates attended
various conferences and meetings. They
were everywhere most cordially received.
Walther also visited Langenschursdorf, his
home, and Braunsdorf, the place of his first
brief pastorate.
At Neuendettelsau they were welcomed
291
I^octor Carl Walton
most heartily by Loehe, who dedicated a
special number, beautifully gotten up, of his
paper, Kirchliche Mitteilungen, to his two
visitors. It almost seemed that a perfect un-
derstanding had been reached. After this
first conference Loehe met the two delegates
twice in Niirnburg, and they called on him
twice at Neuendettelsau. After making sev-
eral visits in Northern Germany, they re-
turned home, reaching St. Louis February 2,
1852. SIhler, whose judgment in these mat-
ters was apt to be correct, writes In his auto-
biography: "Unfortunately, they had not at-
tained the main object of their journey.
Pfarrer Loehe, it is true, was unable to op-
pose anything valid to the convincing argu-
ments of Professor Walther, still he clung to
his vague assertions that the Confessions of
our Church had no such binding force as we
held them to have." Walther tells his wife
why: "One finds one thing almost every-
where with all this cry of Lutheran Church;
namely, one is not minded to seat one's self
with childlike simplicity at the feet of our
old teachers, and before one attempts to seek
everything out of the Scriptures, to first hear
these teachers who have spoken unto us the
word of God following their faith and con-
sidering the end of their conversation" (Heb.
292
Hoete anb tfie Jotna ^pnob
13:7) (Vol. I, p. 78). Indeed, these Ger-
man theologians made the criticism against
Walther and other Missouri writers that
they had produced nothing new. Their great
word was Fortentwicklung (progressive de-
velopment). In the above quoted letter
Walther writes: "Now, after I have seen
much in Germany which encourages me to
praise God, I must, nevertheless, say, God
has still done the greatest unto us in Amer-
ica" (p. 81). If that is true, it is because
God through Walther taught us "to seat our-
selves with childlike simplicity at the feet of
our old teachers."
The break with Loehe came in 1852.
Loehe had planned the establishment of "a
kind of Protestant convent" in the Saginaw
Valley. It was to be a hospice, a sanato-
rium, a seminary for pastors and teachers,
a missionary outpost for Michigan, and the
center of a strong Lutheran colony. He had
selected a young man, trained and educated
under his influence, to become rector of this
Pilgerhaus. This young man, whom he
called his "Timothy," had studied theology at
Erlangen, and came to America in 1848.
He was present at the Synod of 1850, where
he for several days defended Loehe's posi-
tion in debate with Walther, and finally,
293
J^ottor Carl Waltiitt
with open, manly frankness, admitted him-
self to have been overcome by the truth. The
young man was Gottlieb Schaller, after-
wards, with Walther, pastor in St. Louis and
professor at Concordia Seminary.
When Schaller, placing his love of the
truth above the demands of sincere and
grateful friendship, declined to become the
rector of Loehe's Pilgerhaus, Pastor Gross-
mann was sent over to lead the undertaking,
with instructions that it should "remain for
the first in Church fellowship, but not in mem-
bership connection with the Synod of Mis-
souri." This was most unfortunate, for the
Saginaw Valley pastors and congregations
were among its most active members. Al-
though Loehe had offered no objection to
"Seminary Inspector" Grossmann's seeking
membership in the Missouri Synod, he felt
it his duty "to withdraw himself from the
influences of the Synodical spirit." Very
naturally the Saginaw Valley congregations,
acting through the Synod and Wyneken, its
President, requested Loehe to either place
the new institution under control of the
Synod, or abandon the undertaking. Pastor
Loehe did neither. His adherents, twenty-
two in number, under the leadership of
"Seminary Inspector" Grossmann and Pastor
294
Hoete anb tfie Slotoa «;$pnob
Deindorfer, journeyed to Iowa, where they
founded the colony "St. Sebald at the
Spring," sixty miles north of Dubuque. That
was in 1853. In 1854 two other men came
over, sent by Loehe. These two, with Gross-
mann and Deindorfer, met at St. Sebald, on
August 24, 1854, and organized the Iowa
Synod. One of the men was Sigmund Frit-
schel. His brother, Gottlieb Fritschel, came
over in 1857. These two brothers are the
real founders and leaders of this Synod,
which, according to Loehe's plan, was doc-
trinally to occupy a middle ground between
Buffalo and Missouri. This "middle ground"
idea, by the way, is a somewhat vague and
pleasant fiction. Doctor Mann, in his "Luth-
erans in America," also divides the Church
into "the Left Wing," "the Right Wing,"
and "the Center." People who make that
division somehow forget that the location of
the center always depends upon where you
happen to stand. Thus Walther and the
Missourians might claim to occupy the con-
servative confessional center or middle
ground between Buffalo and Iowa. In plain
words, this "middle ground" or "center" talk
usually means very little.
Loehe did not intend to establish an oppo-
sition Synod against Missouri, occupying the
295
J^octor Carl Waltbtv
same territory and setting up altar against
altar. With his ignorance of American con-
ditions, he doubtless imagined that the two
Church bodies could work side by side in
separate geographically divided territories.
The result, however, was bitter opposition
and controversy. An attempt to allay this
was made by the holding of a Colloquium
between representatives of the two Synods
at Milwaukee, in 1867. Unfortunately, the
desired result, unity of faith, was not at-
tained.
The statement has been made by Doctor
Neve, in his "Brief History," etc., that "The
Iowa Synod does not as a Synod represent
the views of Loehe, but rather his convic-
tion that, since there was agreement in the
confessional doctrine, the points in dispute
were not of sufficient magnitude to justify a
rupture in the Church." To which Walther
made this reply: "If we permit in the midst
of the Lutheran Church the departure from
any one point of the Confessions, we tear
down the Lutheran Church itself, and show
ourselves as traitors who have taken position
within her walls to raze her fortifications
under pretence of repairing them and open
wide to the enemy the entrance over their
ruins" {Lutheraner, Vol. XI, p. 203 ) ,
296
JLotfit anb ttie 3lotda ^pnob
Walther always spoke of Loehe with re-
spect and esteem. Thus, in a letter to Fick,
he writes: "It is my opinion that Loehe's
frankness is just as honorable, as it renders
his error harmless for all those who wish
to see ; while the sanctimonious hypocrisy of
the Grabauites is just as contemptible as it
serves to seduction" (Vol. I, p. 95). Still,
this controversy brought Walther no little
calumny and reproach. Here were people
holding out the hand of fellowship like
Zwingli at Marburg, saying, "Our differ-
ences are immaterial." Here is Walther re-
fusing them the recognition they sought.
Whereupon Iowa declared at Milwaukee,
"The Missourians are committing a sin of
frightful bearing which they can never an-
swer for." Was this true? Let Walther re-
ply: "Wherever doctrinal controversy arose,
there was never peace, unless the erring party
came over to the truth, or that new parties
formed, or that the advocates of the truth
sacrificed this most precious of all goods"
(Vol. I, p. 96). "We therefore need men
who in trial have experienced the excellence
(Herrlichkeit) of the word; yea, of every
word, who know that in each eternal life
is enclosed, and that, therefore, with each
eternal life may also be lost; each must be
297
jOoctor Carl Wall^tv
defended to the last" {"bis aufs Bluf').
Plainly, Walther had read Isaiah 66:2:
"To this man will I look, even to him that is
poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth
at my word." Having read that, he had no
choice but to stand firm, and, like Luther,
simply say, "It is written." That he, too,
rendered the Church an immense service by
so doing is at least indicated by the Inter-
synodical Conference held at St. Paul, Minn.,
May 3 and 4, 1916, at which Conference de-
bated points of doctrine were discussed and
stated in a form acceptable to 555 pastors,
representing the Missouri, Wisconsin, Min-
nesota, Iowa and other Synods.
298
Cfjapter 21
**M ^tue Peace ^fjeologian
ft
In his great tract, "If a Soldier May be in
a State of Grace ?" Martin Luther makes the
point that "the civil power is not established
of God to break peace and begin war, but to
preserve peace and prevent war." He then
goes on and uses the text, "Scatter Thou the
people that delight in war" (Ps. 68:30),
with telling force, to show that there is a
mighty difference between "will and must,
desire and necessity," arguing that God al-
ways defeats and scatters the people who
begin strife without just cause. This truth
is capable of an application to the Church.-
While Walther's entire hfe was filled with
controversy, it may be truthfully said that he
never sought or provoked a religious conflict.
His invariable rule of conduct was: "Let us
therefore follow after the things which
make" (not for strife, but) "for peace"
(Rom. 14:19).
The Lutheran Church, as "the Church of
theologians," has doubtless also produced
its share of what the Germans call Streit-
theologen (strife-theologians). Walther
299
doctor Carl Walt^tx
was not one of them. Guenther truthfully
calls him "ein rechter Friedenstheoloff" ("a
true peace theologian"). While he well
knew that the Church on earth can never be
anything but a Church militant, and that a
complete cessation of all spiritual warfare
means a denial of her character as a true
Church, he also knew that the great end of
all its struggles and controversies must ever
be the establishment and preservation of
peace. This appears not only from his let-
ters, the prospectus for the Lutheraner, the
constitution of the Missouri Synod, but also
from Lehre und Wehre {Doctrine and De-
fence)., a theological journal issued at his
suggestion and under his editorship, in 1855.
Like the Lutheraner, this, too, was at first
called fValther's Lehre und Wehre.
The need of such a Predigerzeitung (min-
isters' paper) had engaged his attention for
some time. The Lutheraner had admira-
ably served its first purpose, and gath-
ered the men who founded the Synod into
visible unity of faith. It had gained a large
and increasing number of readers among the
members of the congregations. This neces-
sitated its being edited rather as a layman's
church paper. On the other hand, the at-
tacks and criticisms of the opponents of the
300
'H Crue Peace Ctieologian"
new Church body in unfriendly theological
publications, coupled with the difficulty of
securing an opportunity to reply for the cor-
rection of errors and misstatements, com-
pelled Walther and the Synod to seek some
medium for its self-defence and the strength-
ening of its ministerium through a thorough
discussion of the great questions agitating
the Church. But the new journal did not
stop there. Indeed, It went a step beyond
the Lutheraner. While the Lutheraner made
its appeal to individuals and aimed "to unite
the divided members of the Lutheran
Church," Walther' s Lehre und Wehre made
its appeal to other Lutheran Church bodies,
and aimed to unite them. This especially ap-
pears from the foreword to Its second vol-
ume, written by him in 1856, only nine years
after the founding of the Synod. Briefly re-
viewing the state of the Church In America,
the article ends with a call for the holding
of free conferences for the promotion of per-
fect unity and peaceful co-operation on the
part of all who unqualifiedly accept the Augs-
burg Confession as their confession of faith.
This call was suggested and invited by the
publication in 1855 of the "Definite Synod-
ical Platform," a revision of the Augsburg
Confession in the interest of "American
301
J^octor Carl Walt^tv
Lutheran! sm," as presented by the Doc-
tors Schmucker, Sprecher and Kurtz, of
the General Synod. The efforts of these
men to develop a form of Lutheran-
ism adapted to an American environment,
are usually described as an attempt
to modify Lutheranism by the Puritan
element. As Doctor Mann pointed out in
1857, this statement is not entirely correct,
for "the doctrinal system of Puritanism is
Calvinistic, while the doctrinal system of this
"American Lutheranism" was distinctly
Zwinglian. "Puritanic-Methodistic English
Protestantism," he says, exerted its influence
"more particularly upon the spirit of piety,
upon Christian life, its morality and forms
of worship." (See "Lutheranism in Amer-
ica," p. 2 Iff.) With the publication of the
"Definite Platform," the District Synods
composing the General Synod were called
upon to signify their adoption of it as their
confession of faith. Doctor Walther points
out that but three of them succumbed to this
temptation to repudiate the Magna Charta
of our Church, namely, the Wittenberg
Synod, the Olive Branch Synod and the
English Synod of Ohio. Almost all other
Synods, which had opportunity to discuss
the matter, repudiated the new doc-
302
' H Crue Peace Ctjeologian "
trinal basis "with hardly to be expected
unanimity." This fact fills Walther and all
who love the Lutheran Zion of this country
with great joy and hope for the future. It
contains, he says, a pressing summons to us to
foster the unity which God by His grace has
already brought forth. He then points to
the free conferences and Church days {Kirch-
entage) held by the brethren in Germany,
and closes his foreword with a call for the
arrangement of similar meetings in this
country to be attended by all who accept the
Unaltered Augsburg Confession of 1S30, in
order "to attempt the final realization of one
united Evangelical Lutheran Church of
North America." He promises for himself,
his fellow-theologians and laymen, to attend
such a free conference whenever and wher-
ever it may be held. While such gatherings
and conferences can have only a private
character, and the persons attending can take
part, not as representing their respective
Synods, but only in a personal capacity,
he feels certain "that a personal ver-
bal intercourse and exchange cannot fail
to be salutary, and would assuredly, above
all, bring forth this incomparable bless-
ing that the conflict which is still indeed
necessary in our Church would take on and
303
i^octor Carl l^alttier
keep the character of a mutual emulation
among brethren for the faithful preservation
of the precious treasure of doctrinal purity
and unity" (Lehre und Wehre, Vol. II, pp.
1-5 ) . Surely no further evidence is required
to prove that Guenther's estimate of Walther
is correct. Only "ein rechter Friedensthe-
olog" could write in this fashion.
It is impossible to discuss the "Definite
Platform" without saying this : Its rejection
by the General Synod plainly proves that it
would be most wrong to hold that Church
body responsible for its publication. This
attempt to substitute what was practically a
new creed for the standard to which all Luth-
erans have ever rallied and clung was the act
of a few men, prominent and influential, it is
true, but who thereby sacrificed their previ-
ous prominence and influence. Walther cor-
rectly gauged the situation when he said that
its almost unanimous repudiation was a cause
for rejoicing and a ground of hope for all
who love our Lutheran Zion in America.
As we look back, now that sixty years have
elapsed, we can see that great good came out
of this open attempt to Zwinglianize and
Puritanize the Church. The attempt, it is
said, had to be made. When we consider the
weakness of men and the strength of tempta-
304
"M CruE Peace 'Cfjeolosian "
tion, this is, perhaps, true. It was later made
in a petty way by some of the young men
who established the first purely English con-
gregations of the Missouri Synod. They,
too, promised themselves a larger measure
of success If they made a futile attempt to
keep and defend Lutheran doctrine while
conforming in all outward things to the
usages of their Arminian and Puritan neigh-
bors. Being made, it was bound to fail. Its
failure was recognized by its own advocates.
Thus Doctor Samuel Sprecher is reported to
have said : "I once thought that a Lutheran-
ism modified by the Puritan element was de-
sirable ; but I have given up its desirableness,
and am convinced of its hopelessness"
(Neve, p. 83).
Its failure gave impetus to the cause of
confessional Lutheranism, not only within
the General Synod, out of which the General
Council was organized in 1866, but it also
indirectly led to the organization of the Syn-
odical Conference in 1872 — results which the
framers of the "Definite Synodical Platform"
neither designed nor desired.
Walther's call for the holding of free con-
ferences met with immediate response. The
first was held at Columbus, Ohio, October 1,
1856. It was attended by fifty-four ministers
305
J^octor Carl Walttitv
and nineteen laymen, members of four differ-
ent Synods — Missouri, the Joint Synod of
Ohio, and the New York and Pennsylvania
Ministeriums. Walther's motion, urging a
consideration of the Augsburg Confession,
article by article, prevailed, and Articles 1-7
were discussed and accepted at this first gath-
ering. Three other such free conferences
were held during the ensuing years. One at
Pittsburgh, October 29 to November 4, 1857 ;
at Cleveland, August 5-11, 1858; at Fort
Wayne, July 14-20, 1859. The discussion of
the Augustana was continued, and the Articles
7-14, and Article 28, accepted. Of course
this left Article 17, with its condemnation of
Chiliasm, and Article 18, "of Free Will,"
Article 20, "of Faith and Good Works," with
their bearing on the doctrine of conversion
untouched. The former was to keep the
Iowa Synod from joining the Synodical Con-
ference; the other was to take the Joint
Synod of Ohio out of it after it had joined.
Walther was present at all of these gather-
ings but the last, when a severe throat trou-
ble prevented his attendance. He, of course,
took most active part in all of the proceed-
ings. His services toward this attempt to
promote the great cause of Christian unity
through the organization of a united Luth-
306
"iai Crue Peace '^fieologtan "
eran Church in America, were recognized by
the adoption of a resolution by the Fort
Wayne conference expressing regret that
"Professor Walther, who gave the first im-
pulse to these conferences, and through
whom God the Lord has made so many a
blessing to come unto them, should this time
have been prevented from taking part in the
proceedings ; with the wish that it may please
God to soon restore this noble instrument
{edle Werkzeuff) , and for long preserve it
unto His Church."
Walther's health became worse and
worse, causing the gravest apprehensions
to his intimate associates, to the St. Louis
faculty and congregation, and to the en-
tire Synod. Finally, Pastor Wyneken, the
President of Synod, who since 1858 resided
at Fort Wayne, and Professor Craemer,
of the Practical Seminary, which was still
located at that place, traveled to St. Louis
to persuade Walther to undertake a trip
to Germany seeking restoration of his
health. The St. Louis congregation took Im-
mediate action, most willingly offered to de-
fray all expenses connected with the journey,
and sent its Board of Elders, with the college
faculty, to its beloved Oberpfarrer, beseech-
ing him to give up all work and follow the
307
{doctor Carl Waltbtt
advice of his physicians, who recommended
a sea voyage and the use of some mineral
bath. A peculiar fear made him hesitate,
namely, the fear that his acceptance of the
generous offer of the congregation might
give some cause for offence. He mentions
this in an affecting farewell letter published
in the Luther aner, after he had decided to
make the trip. He speaks of it again in a
letter to his wife written from Germany, and
dated July 14, 1860. He says: "But one
thing now often troubles me, namely, that I
am wandering around the world as a most
useless person, and have wasted and am still
wasting so much money. By God's grace I
have managed to keep the reputation In St.
Louis that I am not serving my brethren for
the body's sake ; now the thought plagues me
that I have sacrificed this my good fame."
Could conscientiousness go further than this ?
He left St. Louis February 6, 1860, ac-
companied by his son Constantln, and his
nephew, Stephanus Keyl, traveling via New
Orleans and returning via New York,
August 20, "healed of his bodily Infirmity,"
to reach St. Louis August 28. At the Octo-
ber meeting of Synod President Wyneken re-
ported: "Our dear and precious teacher.
Professor Walther, Is, thanks be to God,
308
'M Crue Peace Cijeolosian"
again In our midst, restored and strengthened
by his trip and return from Germany. May
God keep him a blessing to us for long to
come."
There is a full report of his journey, the
men of prominence he met, his impressions
of Church conditions, etc., in Lehre und
Wehre, Vol. VI, p. 193, and in the Luther-
aner, Vol. XVII. His letters to his wife,
written for the intimacy of his family circle
and chosen friends, give us additional and in-
teresting details (Vol. I, pp. 138-159).
Among his more important visits were the
visit to Pastor Harms in Hermannsburg, and
Pastor Brunn, in Steeden, with whom he ar-
ranged for the sending over of "helpers in
need" to the "Practical Seminary," after
they had received some previous training in
the schools founded by these friends of the
Church in America. Doctor Marbach, his
opponent at the Altenburg Debate, died
while Walther was in Germany. He at-
tended the funeral services at Leipzig, on
June 9, 1860, and printed the funeral ser-
mon of Pastor Ahlfeldt, of St. Thomas'
Church in the Lutheraner (Vol. XVII, No.
2) . The short notes of his diary, which were
amplified in his editorial correspondence for
Lehre und Wehre (Vol. VI), show that the
309
J^octor Carl WsAt^tv
thoughts which especially occupied his mind
at this period were the questions being dis-
cussed by the free conferences he had in-
augurated — the great question of Lutheran
unity. Here are a few of his notes :
"An admonition to our Synod to keep the
unity in which it stands."
"This unity makes us strong despite our
weakness."
"Not a unity of stagnation, but of living
activity."
"Unity not only among ourselves, but also
with the faithful Church of all times."
It is the thought expressed in his Fore-
word to Vol. II of Lehre und Wehre, "Die
endliche Darstellung einer einigen evangel-
isch-lutherischen Kirche von Nordamerika^'
("The final realization of one united Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church of North Amer-
ica") He carried it with him everywhere.
His illness and absence, doubtless, contrib-
uted to a temporary discontinuance of these
free conferences. A more potent factor was
the lack of real interest on the part of the
Church at large. The leaven of confessional
Lutheranism had not yet sufficiently perme-
ated the whole lump. Other and more
urgent problems were pressing for solution.
The Eastern Synods had troubles of their
310
' M Crue l^eace CtieoIoBian "
own and little real appreciation of the im-
portance and needs of the West. The whole
Church, with the exception of the Missouri
Synod, was in a state of flux. The rule of
action in many cases was expediency rather
than conviction or principle. Difference of
language wielded a far greater influence than
it does to-day. Difficulty of communication,
the approaching civil war, intense political
agitation — all these things combined to
render abortive Walther's efforts in the di-
rection of unity and union. The withdrawal
from the General Synod of the Pennsylvania
Ministerium and the New York Ministe-
rium, the organizing of the General Coun-
cil, the joining of this body by the Wisconsin
Synod, the Minnesota Synod, the Michigan
Synod, only to withdraw again; the refusal
of the Ohio Synod to join the new body, the
zuwartende Stellung (expectant attitude) of
the Iowa Synod, the unending discussion of
the "Galesburg Rule" and the "Four Points,"
the organization and upbuilding of the
Scandinavian Synods, the inevitable friction
caused by clashing missionary and educa-
tional interests — all of these movements, ac-
tivities, debates, approachments, and with-
drawals, showed that the leaven was Indeed
at work, but that the time had not yet come
311
l^ottov Carl Wal^tv
for the results of this work to appear. The
dough was being kneaded, but the time for
baking was not at hand.
Still there was an approachment on the
part of the several Synods, which, under
Walther's leadership, organized the Evan-
gelical Lutheran Synodical Conference at
Milwaukee, July 10-16, 1872, shortly after
the Missouri Synod had celebrated the
twenty-fifth anniversary of its organization.
Preliminary meetings had been held with the
Ohio Synod (Columbus, March 4-6, 1867),
with the Wisconsin Synod (Milwaukee, Oc-
tober, 21, 22, 1868) ; with both these Syn-
ods, the Synod of Illinois, the Minnesota
Synod, and the Synoden for den Norske Ev.
Luth. Kirke in Amerika (Chicago, January
11-13, 1871, and Fort Wayne, November
14-16, 1871). The constitution prepared at
these preliminary meetings was adopted and
Walther elected President of this new Church
federation, which stated its purpose to be :
"The outward expression of the spiritual
unity of the respective Synods; mutual
strengthening in faith and confession; ad-
vancement of unity in faith and practice, and
removal of occurring threatening interruption
of the same; united activity for common
causes; efforts toward a bounding of Synods
312
'3i Crue Peace 'STtJcolofitan "
according to territorial boundaries, provided
that language does not separate ; the union of
all Lutheran Synods of America into one
faithful American Lutheran Church."
As we study the constitution of the Synod-
ical Conference, together with the first re-
ports of its proceedings, a number of inter-
esting things appear :
1. Of course, the constitution of the Syn-
odical Conference, like all efforts at organi-
zation led by Walther, is but an affirmation
and application of the Augsburg theses as
developed in Kirche und Amt and Die
Rechte Gestalt. A supreme emphasis is laid
upon the Confession of Faith, which is God's
word, and the Book of Concord of 1580.
The Norwegian Synod, which put the ques-
tion if it might become a constituent part of
the Synodical Conference, if it as a separate
body (Einzebynode) confessed adherence
only to the unaltered Augsburg Confession
and the Smaller Catechism of Doctor Mar-
tin Luther, was informed that "the Scandina-
vian Lutherans had always been recognized
as a faithful Church, although all symbolical
books had not obtained ecclesiastical and
legal (kirchenrechtlich) recognition with
them; nevertheless the Synodical Conference
self-evidently required that the venerable
313
J^octor Carl l©altljcr
Norwegian Synod, insomuch as it was a part
of the Synodical Conference, should with it
confess to all the symbolical books of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, and in connec-
tion with any doctrinal controversy which
might occur, govern itself and suffer itself to
be judged according to them." Plainly, there
was to be no union at the expense of doctrinal
truth or explicit confessional statement.
2. While the constitution of the Missouri
Synod places a great emphasis upon Chris-
tian missions, it makes no provision for
Christian benevolence. The constitution of
the Synodical Conference in paragraph 5,
"Objects of Activity," speaks of die Kranken-
und JVaisenhaus-sache (the hospital and
orphanage cause). It thus represents an ad-
vance upon the constitution of the Missouri
Synod, and a distinct recognition of the im-
portance and value of united benevolence as
a manifestation of the unity of faith.
3. Provision was made by a by-law at the
fifth convention that every constituent body
was to submit a copy of its printed report
containing a summary of its doctrinal discus-
sions for examination as to their orthodoxy,
to committees appointed by the President of
the Synodical Conference, to which they
made a report in writing. {Lehrwacht — doc-
314
"B 'Crue Peace Cfteologtan"
trinal watchfulness.). Paul's injunction to
Timothy, "Take heed unto thyself and unto
the doctrine," was to be taken with utmost
seriousness.
4. The subject discussed by the Synodlcal
Conference at Its first session was a paper
presented by Professor Loy, of the Ohio
Synod, on the question, "What is our duty
toward the English population of our
country?" The other paper discussed the
Lutheran doctrine of justification. Plainly,
these people held It to be the supreme duty
of the Church to preach the great funda-
mental doctrine of justification by faith to
this country In Its own official language as
soon as this could be done without a neglect
of what was discussed in the third paper,
"Innere Mission," or "Home Missions."
They were anything but narrow. German as
they were, they fully recognized America's
greatest need and the necessity of united ef-
fort to meet it. They, therefore, did not
merely concern themselves with the working
out of some plan to prevent the setting up
of altar against altar In jointly occupied ter-
ritories, or the avoidance of public criticism
and Inconsiderate argument In their church
papers by providing for the adjustment of
possible and probable differences at their
315
i^octor Carl Walton
joint local conferences or Synodical meetings,
but they aimed to establish a large central
theological seminary with a faculty composed
of members of all the Synods, at which all can-
didates for the holy ministry were at least
to complete their studies. It was hoped that
this uniform plan of education would serve
to unite the Church through a unification of
its ministry. Had it been possible to carry
out this plan, the founding of a great Luth-
eran university in America would have been
a comparatively easy undertaking. They
also contemplated an organization of the
Church into State Synods, uniting all faithful
Lutherans of every State in the Union into
one body and federating them into one great
Lutheran Church in America. That this
might mean the substitution of some other
plan of organization for the constitution of
the Missouri Synod was perfectly plain to
Walther, who, at a Delegate Synod, held at
St. Louis in 1878, where this matter was dis-
cussed, did not hesitate to openly and pub-
licly say, "Der Teufel had den Namen Mis-
sourish erftinden!" ("The devil invented the
name MissourianI") Since the father of
lies, speaking through the enemies of the
gospel, also invented the name "Christian"
and "Lutheran," Walther undoubtedly cor-
316
"31 Crue Peate Ctieologtan"
redly stated the truth. His remark is quoted
to show the ardent and prayerful desire of
this Rechter Frie dens the olog for the unity of
the Church at any sacrifice, save only the sac-
rifice of the truth. When that was asked
of him he had no choice as a humble, faith-
ful pupil of Luther but to say, "Here I
stand; I can do no other. God help me.
Amen," and then let come what would.
317
chapter 22
Higfttsi antr ^jjabotusf
When trying to paint a man's portrait in
the Franz Hals manner with big swinging
brush strokes, a point is sooner or later
reached where it becomes necessary to pull
the picture together with smaller strokes — a
remark which may, perhaps, explain the
heading of this chapter and excuse the brief
notes of which it is composed.
In a letter to Doctor Sihler, dated March
17, 1849, after discussing arrangements for
the third meeting of Synod, Walther says:
"I am now often very much downcast; I
feel almost nothing save my misery, and only
seldom the grace and power of my God.
Pray for miserable me." What chiefly
troubled him, besides the controversy with
Pastor Grabau and the Buffalo Synod, was
this: "We must consider how a division of
the Synod may be accomplished without Its be-
ing split to pieces." The problem was not easy
of solution. A Church which bases its unity
entirely upon doctrinal agreement must of
necessity provide for frequent meetings of
its members to foster such agreement. There
318
TLifjfytsi anb ^ibaltoUis;
is no other way to attain their "all speaking
the same thing, being perfectly joined to-
gether in the same mind and in the same
judgment" (1 Cor. 1:10). The new
Synod was a little more than two years old.
Its widely scattered members hardly knew
each other. It was being most bitterly at-
tacked by Pastor Grabau and his adherents.
Pastor Loehe had published his "Aphoris-
men," and indicated his disapproval of
Walther's and partial approval of Grabau's
position. Not a few members of the Synod
were Loehe's grateful pupils. Men of prom-
inence in the home Church also questioned
the wisdom of more than one provision of
the Synod's constitution. Doctrinal clear-
ness, especially as regards the position of our
Church on the question of "Church and
Office," was sadly lacking. There had been
almost no opportunity for Walther, as Presi-
dent, to visit the congregations composing
the Synod. Most of their members had
never seen their leader. Now the suggestion
was made to divide Synod. He recognizes
that it cannot long be avoided or postponed.
But the thought fills him with dread. No
wonder he writes: "I am now very often
downcast" (gedrueckt). Action was de-
ferred by the adoption of a committee re-
319
l^octor Carl Walt^tt
port, written by Pastor Craemer, advising
against the proposed division. Three years
later, at Fort Wayne, in 1852, a division into
four districts was resolved upon, subject, of
course, to the approval of the congregations.
These districts were organized as follows :
The Western District ( Missouri, Illinois and
Iowa), with 37 parishes; the Middle District
(Indiana, Ohio), with 36 parishes; the
Northern District (Wisconsin, Michigan),
with 14 parishes; the Eastern District (New
York, Maryland, Pennsylvania), with 8
parishes. The necessary changes to the con-
stitution were submitted and discussed; the
whole matter considered again at Cleveland
In 1853, and finally resolved upon and con-
summated at the eighth convention held at
St. Louis in 1854. Pastor Friedrlch Wyne-
ken was elected General President, and
Synod aranged to provide for his support
by paying him a salary of $70 per month,
and allowing him $140 for traveling ex-
penses. He had been President of the Synod
since 1850, when Walther was relieved of
this office in order that he might, with entire
singleness of purpose, devote himself to the
upbuilding of Concordia College and Semi-
nary and his editorial labors. The officers
of the District Synods were elected, the time
320
Utgttst anb ^IjabotDfii
for their annual meeting fixed, whereupon
the Allgemeine Synode (General Synod) ad-
journed to meet after three years, having ap-
pointed Fort Wayne as the place, and the
first Monday of October, 1857, as the time
for Its next meeting.
Dr. Sihler had been impressed by
Walther's remarkable talent for organiza-
tion when they met at St. Louis, in 1842,
to discuss the draft of a constitution for the
proposed Synod. The division of the Synod
into districts necessitated important and far-
reaching changes in the document adopted
at Chicago in 1847. These changes and
amendments, together with the amplifica-
tions and interpretations {Wetter e Bestim-
mungen) adopted from time to time and col-
lected in the "Synodical Manual" {"Synodal-
Handbuch"), now constitute a very respecta-
ble body of what, for want of a better word,
might be called ecclesiastical law. But the
fundamental principles laid down in the
Altenburg theses of 1841, first applied In the
organization of the St. Louis congregation
and later in the framing of Synod's constitu-
tion on the lines described by Walther in a
letter to Pastor Ernst (Vol. L P- 16), have
stood the strain of seventy years of growth
and development. That they should have
321
J^octor (Carl Walt^tt
done so, Is at once a testimony to their cor-
rectness and to the wonderful gifts of the
man under whose leadersip they were thus
applied and developed. Such was the im-
press of his spirit upon the Synod and its in-
stitutions, which at present counts twenty-
two districts, that it to-day stands more firmly
knit together in unity of faith and uniformity
of practice than ever.
At the Synodical convention of 1850, the
Chicago District Conference presented
twelve questions for consideration, the tenth
of which ran like this : "How far may and
should a Lutheran minister occupy himself
with the advancement of the American Bible
Society, which is composed of members of
all sects, If he himself desires to obtain bene-
fits through it?" Synod replied : "As re-
spects participation with the American Bible
Societies, Synod holds that absolutely no
cause for it exists, and that the Evangelical
Lutheran Church is very well able to found
a Bible Society of Its own." Despite this
boldness of speech. Synod did not say how
this Lutheran Bible Society was to be
founded. It tacitly left that to Walther,
who, as usual, conferred with Trinity congre-
gation, which, on April 24, 1853, organized
a Bible Society and elected him its President.
322
Uisfitfi! anb ^i)abotus(
Walther had a marvelous faculty for
pressing every real man he met into service.
Just as soon as this Bible Society, with its
250 members, had collected sufficient funds,
we find him writing to his former oppo-
nent at the Altenburg Debate, Doctor Adolf
Marbach, of Leipzig, requesting his assist-
ance in arranging for the importation of
Bibles from Germany. He had met him at
his first visit to the fatherland, two years be-
fore. He wrote his wife how mutual reti-
cence at their first meeting betrayed mutual
mistrust, which was soon overcome, so that
the old love was not only rekindled, but
burned with a brighter and purer flame than
ever before. Accordingly, we find him writ-
ing to the Herr Kommissionsrat, address-
ing him "Teurer, in mein Herz einge-
schlossoener Freund und Bruder," soliciting
his interest and support for the Church in
America. It was not denied him. Bibles
were imported from the house of G. B. Teub-
ner, Leipzig, through the intermediation of
Doctor Marbach, and branches of the Luth-
eran Bible Society were established in the
larger cities of the country. But Walther
and the Bible Society did not stop there.
They published the so-called "Altenburger
Bibelwerk," a devotional work containing
323
Junctor Carl Wal^tx
Luther's version with his notes, glosses and
prefaces, the summaries of Veit Dietrich, and
the brief prayers of Franclscus Vierling.
They also published the Holy Scriptures in
several editions before the society, after
Walther's death, turned over all its property,
representing a value of $17,407, to Synod in
1887.
The eighth report of the proceedings of
Synod has this note on its title page: "St.
Louis, Mo., Printery of the Evangelical
Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other
States, 1854." So the young Synod had a
printery. The matter is explained by a note
on page 15 of the report of 1855, where it
Is stated "that our General Synod has come
into possession of a printery of its own
through a non-interest bearing loan of $1000,
made by Mr. A. Wiebusch, of St. Louis,
which apparently will be self-supporting
within a few years. The Synod expressed
its gratification, and tendered its sincere
thanks to Mr. Wiebusch." It then promptly
proceeded to discuss the publication of a
Church history, a number of tracts, a reprint
of Walther's Lutheraner articles on the
Lord's Supper, a new Book of Forms, etc.
It should have expressed its gratification
and tendered its sincere thanks to Walther,
324
UistiM anb ^fiabotoK
for it was he who had again pressed a man
into service, and persuaded Mr. A. Wie-
busch to launch this new undertaking. The
1857 report shows that it represented a
value of $5000, and was in a position to
print such important publications as the "Al-
tenburger Bibelwerk" and the new "Agende."
After passing through the usual struggles
and vicissitudes, it finally grew into Con-
cordia Publishing House, the largest Church-
owned printing establishment in this coun-
try, which regularly issues an annual cata-
logue of nearly 600 pages. It was strong
enough to carry to successful completion a
critical reprint of the twenty-four great quarto
volumes of Luther's collected writings. When
it, acting for Synod, in 1887, took over the
property and work of the Bible Society, it
not only gave proof that "the Evangelical
Lutheran Church is very well able to found
a Bible Society of its own," but that, as
stated in paragraph 3, Chapter I, of Synod's
constitution, the entire Church, instead of
leaving this work to an association of indi-
vidual Christians, ought itself be such a so-
ciety "for the united propagation of the gos-
pel."
The outbreak of the Civil War and the
struggles for the possession of St. Louis
325
J^octor Carl l@alt|)er
and its arsenal, together with the State of
Missouri, at that time debated ground,
caused Walther most distressing anxieties
and cares. The position of our Church on
the slavery question, as stated by him in
Lehre und Wehre, and his refusal to have
part in the intemperate agitations of the Abo-
litionists, brought him the same measure of
persecution that was meted out to Bishop
John Henry Hopkins, of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church, whose "Scriptural, Ecclesias-
tical and Historical View of Slavery," still
remains unanswered. The cries of the day,
"Down with the Bible, if it maintains
slavery," "It is high time to have an anti-
slavery God and an anti-slavery Bible," could
not fail to shock him as they shocked other
earnest and God-fearing men. Being honest,
he could not but say so, refusing to be "driven
about by every wind of doctrine." The in-
evitable result was reviling and vituperation,
the harder to bear because of the utter impos-
sibility of making any effective reply. He
was compelled to send his family to the
country because it seemed that the college
neighborhood would become the scene of a
conflict between the troops of the federal gov-
ernment and the State militia. The college
was closed and the students sent to their
326
1list)t£( anb ^fiabotusi
homes. These events justified the gravest
apprehensions, not merely for his personal
safety (he seems never to have given that a
thought), but for his family, and especially
for the future of the Church. He writes of
these things to his wife, to Pastor Linde-
mann, to Pastor Brunn, and to the St. Louis
District Conference, in session at CoUins-
ville. 111. (Letters, Vol. I, pp. 162-171.)
This was after his return from Europe,
where he had gone in the spring of 1860, to
seek restoration of his health, broken down,
at least in part, by the cares of his trying
position during the dark days which preceded
the great civil conflict.
The St. Louis convention of Synod, in
October, 1860, had resolved to remove the
"Practical Seminary" from Fort Wayne to
St. Louis, combining it with the "Theoretical
Seminary," and to remove the college, or
gymnasium, from St. Louis to Fort Wayne
in order to develop it as a separate institu-
tion. The resolution was carried out in the
fall of 1861, after the institution, which had
been closed in May, again began its work.
The move was a happy one, and Walther
writes to Schwan : "Although surrounded by
reminders of bloody warfare, we here live In
uninterrupted peace. Since Craemer's ad-
327
J^octor Cart ^©altijcr
vent, blessing upon blessing is gushing forth
unto us from every side. With him I am one
heart and one soul; we are both reviving, ex-
cept that I thereby daily become more sapless
and powerless." (Letters, Vol. I, p. 171.)
The two men labored together until 1875,
when the "Practical Seminary" was removed
to its present home at Springfield, 111.
In the midst of the turmoil and agitations
of the civil war, Walther's congregation and
friends insisted upon celebrating thei twenty-
fifth anniversary of his ordination. Trinity
congregation also erected a magnificent new
church building, at a cost of $113, 000, which
was dedicated, without one cent of debt, on
December 3 and 4, 1865. Walther preached
at the first service, selecting the 87th Psalm
for his text. His subject was, "The won-
derful, miraculous edifice, God's Church on
earth." "It is," he said, " ( 1 ) in appearance
so weak, and yet it stands so immovably firm ;
(2) in appearance so poor, and yet it pos-
sesses such incomparable treasures; (3) in ap-
pearance so small, and yet It comprises such
great, countless multitudes." Christ Protestant
Episcopal Church, which had so generously
extended its hospitality to the poor Saxon im-
migrants twenty-seven years before, again
accepted the invitation to a special Sunday
328
Higtits; anb ^Jbatrotusi
evening service, at which Professor F. A.
Schmidt preached on Rom. 1:16. The erec-
tion and dedication of this fine building was
a source of great joy to Walther, who had
shared the trials and griefs of Trinity con-
gregation since he became its pastor in 1841.
At an extra session of Synod, held at Fort
Wayne, in October, 1864, Wyneicen insisted
upon being relieved of the office of General
President, which he had held since the di-
vision of Synod into districts in 1854. The
Synod again turned to Walther and urged
him to accept the election to this important
office, although it was necessary to again
modify the constitutional instructions defin-
ing his duties. Accordingly the General
President was no longer required to visit in-
dividual congregations, but merely to act as
general overseer of all general interests of
the Church. His participation in the public
doctrinal discussions (colloquium) with the
Buffalo Synod, in 1866 ; with the Iowa Synod,
in 1867; with the Ohio Synod, in 1868; with
the Wisconsin Synod, in the same year; with
the Illinois Synod, in 1869, together with
other meetings preliminary to the organiza-
tion of the Synodical Conference, have been
described above. These meetings and de-
bates, with the required preparation and cor-
329
i^octor Carl WaV^tv
respondence, besides his ordinary duties as
professor, editor and President of Synod,
represent an immense amount of labor, as
well as a severe physical and mental strain,
more than sufficient to break down any ordi-
nary man. It is, therefore, not surprising
that his throat trouble returned in 1869, and
that he suffered from a severe attack of
rheumatism in 1870. At Milwaukee, in
1873, where he was the guest of Pastor
Lochner during a convention of the North-
ern District Synod, he broke down com-
pletely. A temporary loss of consciousness
and memory were the threatening symptoms
which prompted his physicians to insist that
he at least moderate his activities and refrain
from severe mental labors. He speaks of
these trials with the simple faith of a child
in a letter to his daughter Magdalene, quot-
ing the words : "Jch Gott, von dessen Brod
ich zehr, wenn ich dir nur was nuetze waer."
He was prevented by his weakened condition
from attending the second convention of the
Synodical Conference in 1873, but after a
brief rest he insisted upon taking part in the
proceedings of the Middle District (August
13-19), and the Eastern District (August
27 to September 2), although he was unable
to preach the sermons at the services with
330
ILisbti ant ^^aboiai
which these conventions are always opened.
It is apparent that his strength was beginning
to break, and that the loving care of his wife
and family did more to conserve his powers
than all medicines. That he should spare him-
self for any length of time was not to be
thought of, especially when there was the
slightest hope of attaining his heart's great
desire, "the final realization of one united
Evangelical Lutheran Church of North
America."
The general Synodical body met at St.
Louis in 1872, just twenty-five years after its
organization at Chicago in 1847. It now
numbered 428 pastors and 251 parish school
teachers. It had two theological seminaries,
a teachers' seminary, a gymnasium, and a
publishing house. Its founders and organ-
izers were, for the most part, at the height of
their powers. And so they counted this a
"Jubilee Synod," held their sessions in a
large public hall, and discussed the question :
"What problems must we solve in order that
the blessing which God had poured out upon
us during the past twenty-five years may not
be lost, but transmitted to our posterity?"
One answer was given by Walther's taking
part in a free conference of English-speaking
Lutherans, held at Gravelton, Mo., in 1872,
331
J^octor Carl Waltiftt
which led to the organization of the "Eng-
lish Lutheran Conference of Missouri," and,
later, to the "English Synod of Missouri,"
which body was absorbed by the mother
Synod at St. Louis, in 1912, and is now "the
English District of the Missouri Synod."
Plainly, it was his conviction that our fathers'
faith was to be preached in our children's
tongue. The Synod had early concerned
itself with the so-called "language problem."
In 1857 it laid down the principles which
ought to obtain in connection with the "or-
ganization of English congregations out of
German mother congregations." It had dele-
gated Professor Walther and Pastor Schwan
to adjust the differences between the German
congregation of Pastor Keyl and the first
Bt. Peter's congregation of Baltimore. It had
appointed delegates to the Tennessee Synod,
an English body, in 1853 and 1854. But it
remained for Walther to give the English
work of the Synod direction and form, by or-
ganizing a purely English Conference in the
Ozark Mountains of Missouri.
The "Jubilee Synod" of 1872, recognizing
the impossibility of meeting with a full at-
tendance of pastors and lay delegates, ar-
ranged for delegate representation by direct-
ing that groups of two to seven congrega-
332
JHqW anb ^{jabotDsi
tions are entitled to send one clerical and one
lay delegate, while groups of two to seven
advisory members are also entitled to a dele-
gate at the conventions. This somewhat un-
wieldy plan for the election of delegates is
in vogue to this day, and the term "Dele-
gatensynode," has supplanted the term, "All-
gemeine Synode," for the triennial meetings
of the general Church body. At the first
"Delegate Synod," held at Fort Wayne, in
1874, Walther asked to be relieved of the
office of General President, a request which
Synod declined to consider, although it again
revised the constitutional instructions pertain-
ing to this office, so as to lighten the burden
of duties imposed upon its chief executive of-
ficer. This constitution is unquestionably a
very flexible document, capable of almost un-
limited amendment, which simply means that
it laid down correct principles and left their
application and interpretation to the require-
ments of future needs.
In June, 1875, Concordia College cele-
brated the twenty-fifth anniversary of its
foundation. The little log cabin school, es-
tablished by faith "at the settlement of the
German Lutherans in Perry County, Mo.,
near the Obrazo," since its removal to St.
Louis had grown and prospered under the
333
I^octot Carl Waltiitx
fostering care of Professor Walther and his
associates. His services to the great cause
of Christian education were publicly recog-
nized by the Church when Capitol Univer-
sity, of Columbus, Ohio, conferred the de-
gree of Doctor of Divinity upon him in Jan-
uary, 1878. This honor had been offered
him by the theological faculty of the Univer-
sity of Goettingen, in 1855, in a most flat-
tering letter signed by the Dean "Herr Kon-
sistorialrath und Professor der Theologie,
Doktor J. G. Reiche." After conferring with
his brethren, Walther courteously but posi-
tively declined to accept the proffered honor.
His reasons for taking this position appear
from letters written to his intimate friends,
the Pastors Fick and Schieferdecker. On the
one hand he held himself to be unworthy of
this high honor ; on the other, he did not care
to accept it at the hands of any but a
staunchly Lutheran faculty. One hardly
knows which to admire most, his almost ex-
cessive modesty, or his uncompromising in-
sistence upon purity of faith.
When the same honor was offered him by
the Joint Synod of Ohio, at that time part
of the Synodical Conference, he felt himself
constrained to accept, and the degree was
formally conferred with appropriate cere-
334
JLi^ts anb ^tiabotosl
monies at the St. Louis Seminary, on January
25, 1878. Guenther quotes his address of
acceptance and his letter of thanks to the
Chicago Pastoral Conference, which had sent
its congratulations in verse form. Both are
a testimony to his entire lack of self-appre-
ciation and to his high regard for the ines-
timable privilege of being with men like
Luther, Chemnitz and Gerhard, publicly ac-
claimed a "Teacher of Teachers" in the
Church of the pure word and unadulterated
sacraments. The congratulations which
came to him from every side were publicly
acknowledged in the Lutheraner.
At the second "Delegate Synod," held in
May, 1878, Walther again begged to be re-
lieved of the office of "General President"
in the interest of his work as professor at the
seminary and many other duties. Synod,
unable to refute his arguments, most re-
luctantly granted his request, expressing the
wish and the hope that he might, whenever
possible, visit the conventions of District
Synods so that the Church might profit
through his gifts.
In 1880, at the 300th anniversary of the
acceptance of the Book of Concord, and the
3S0th anniversary of the presentation of the
Augsburg Confession, Walther contributed
335
I^octor Carl Wali^tt
to the celebration by writing his "Der Kon-
cordienformel Kern und Stern," a reprint of
the Epitome, with a historical introduction
and explanatory notes. In view of the ap-
proaching 400th anniversary of the Reforma-
tion, a remark of Guenther's is worth quot-
ing. He says that Walther was privileged
to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Luth-
er's death in 1846; the 300th anniversary of
the Religious Peace of Augsburg in 1855;
the 350th anniversary of the Reformation
in 1867; the 300th anniversary of the Form
of Concord in 1877, as well as the double
anniversary mentioned above. "He not only
took part in these celebrations, but knew how
to inspire others, gave most valuable guid-
ance {Anleitung) for the ordering of the cel-
ebrations, and showed the deep significance
of these festivals" — setting us an example
for enthusiastic imitation to-day.
336
Cfjajpter 23
Cfje i^retres!tinatuin
In his letter of thanks to the Chicago
Pastoral Conference, which had sent him a
congratulatory poem on his having been
honored with the degree "Doctor of Divin-
ity," Walther said: "The circle, in which I
have hitherto lived, consists In this that God
soon humbled, soon exalted me ; so that I al-
ways knew when an exaltation came that a
deep humiliation would promptly follow."
What he does not say is this : God at times
employs the same means for our humiliation
that were used for our exaltation, and vice
versa. He at times casts down by the same
means He employed to lift up. It was,
therefore, not at all surprising that the same
men who, in 1878, publicly lifted up Walther
to be a Doctor of Theology, a "Teacher of
Teachers" in the faithful Lutheran Church,
within two years afterwards just as publicly
charged him with heresy. It was not surpris-
ing, but it hurt. A blow always hurts, but the
hurt is doubled when it Is preceded by a caress.
It is more than doubled when the same hand
337
i^octor Carl Walf^tv
does both, caresses and strikes. The pain
and grief caused Walther by the unfortunate
predestination controversy of 1880, with its
divisions and offences, will, perhaps, never
be fully told. It shattered some of his fond-
est hopes, and, so far as may be seen by
human eyes, threw back the development of
the Church for years. The dreams of the
men who at the organization of the Synodi-
cal Conference saw one great Lutheran
Church of America organized by states, sup-
porting a great central Lutheran Seminary,
with a German-English-Scandinavian faculty,
which might have grown into a great Luth-
eran university, like most other dreams, van-
ished in a moment. At the time they seemed
very real. Walther, in a letter to his friend,
Ottesen, expresses the wish that he might
labor at his side as professor of theology,
and incidentally teases him a little by suggest-
ing that he might give private instructions to
the faculty in refined manners (Vol. II, p.
227). It was not to be. How this bitter
disappointment affected Walther will, per-
haps, appear from his letters written during
the period. The present second volume
closes with 1871. Fortunately, the publica-
tion of other and later letters is promised.
It is manifestly impossible in this brief
338
chapter to present any full discussion of the
controversy and the questions of doctrine it
involved. Books have been written on it. It
is still the subject of discussion at inter-
S5modical meetings and conferences. One
can hardly do more than attempt a brief ac-
count of Walther's connection with the pain-
ful strife together with its effect upon him
and his work.
And here one can best begin by gratefully
quoting from Doctor Krauth's "Conserva-
tive Reformation" : "The life of a Church
may be largely read in its controversies. As
the glory or shame of a nation is read upon
its battlefields which tell for what it perilled
the lives of its sons, so may the glory or
shame of a Church be determined when we
know what it fought for and what it fought
against ; how much it valued what it believed
to be the truth; what was the truth it valued;
how much it did, and how much it suffered to
maintain that truth, and what was the issue
of its struggles and sacrifices. ... A Church
which contends for nothing, either has lost
the truth, or has ceased to love it" (p. 147).
These words apply to an individual teacher
of the Church as to the Church itself. We
may, therefore, apply them to Walther and
his position in the controversy on the doc-
339
I^octor Carl Wali^^tv
trine of predestination and the related doc-
trine of conversion. It is impossible to fol-
low Hochstetter's account of this contro-
versy. His history of the Missouri Synod
was written in 1885, when the engendered
bitterness was at its height. While he makes
no misstatements of fact, he does ascribe
and impugn motives. Guenther is far more
charitable. For him the controversy is de-
plorable, because of the divisions and of-
fences it wrought; on the other hand, bene-
ficial, because through it many souls were
healed of the error of synergism, and led to
give God all glory for their salvation. He
briefly and objectively discusses Walther's
writings on the debated doctrines, and closes
his chapter by quoting several of his letters
written to friends during this period. We
shall fare best if we follow his example.
The most elaborate presentation of the
subject from the viewpoint of the Ohio
Synod is a book published in 1897, by Pastor
E. L. S. Tressel, under the somewhat ponder-
ous title, "The Error of Modern Missouri :
Its Inception, Development and Refutation."
It contains translations of lengthy papers by
Doctor F; W. Stellhorn, Doctor F. A.
Schmidt, and "several former members of
the Missouri Synod," the most prominent of
340
Cfte Prebcgtinatton Controbcrgg
which were the Pastors Allwardt, Doermann
and Ernst. The most simple and convincing
presentation in English from the viewpoint
of Missouri is a tract by the recently de-,
ceased Pastor F. Kuegele, entitled, "Sermons^
on Predestination, with a Few Remarks on
the Eight Points." It was privately pub-
lished in 1881, and is now, unfortunately, out
of print.
In the doctrinal discussions, which are such
an important feature of all conventions of
the Missouri Synod, the Western District,
under Walther's leadership, had for years
discussed the theme : "Only through the doc-
trine of the Lutheran Church is God alone
given all glory, an irrefutable proof that its
doctrine is the only true one." This was
elaborated from year to year with reference
to the various fundamental doctrines of the
Church. In 1877 the doctrine of predesti-
nation was discussed upon the basis of theses
taken verbatim from the Form of Concord.
Thesis III states: "The Lutheran Church
teaches that it is false and wrong to teach
that not the mercy of God and the most holy
merits of Christ alone, but that in us also
there is a cause of the election of God for
the sake of which God has elected us unto
eternal life." A comparison of this state-
341
J^octor Carl Walt^tt
merit with the XI Article of the Epitome,
which says, "We know how we are elected
to eternal life in Christ, through pure grace
without any of our merit," is sufficient, if
proof were needed, to show its correctness.
Moreover, the Eleventh Article also emphat-
ically says: "The predestination, or eternal
election of God, pertains alone to the good
and beloved children of God; and it is a
cause of their salvation, which He also pro-
cures, and orders that which belongs to it.
Upon this their salvation is so firmly
founded, that the gates of hell cannot prevail
against them (John 10:28; Matt. 16: 18)."
It is apparent that this statement, unless
it be received with simple faith, may give rise
to endless subtle questions. The Form of
Concord recognizes this and wards them off
by insisting that "This predestination of God
is not to be sought in God's secret counsel,
but in the word of God, in which it is re-
vealed"; "We should, therefore, not judge
concerning this election to eternal life, either
from our reason, or from the law of God" ;
"The true sentiment concerning predestina-
tion must be derived from the holy gospel
of Christ alone" ; "We must banish from our
minds other thoughts which flow not from
God, but from the insinuations of the malev-
342
d)e Prebestination ControberjJp
olent enemy," etc. Plainly, the Confession is
urging that in discussing this article we con-
fine ourselves to plain statements of Scripture
and be on our guard against deductions
and conclusions "from our reason or from
the law of God" — a position taken by
Walther on this, as on all other doctrines.
Consequently he refused to accept as "an un-
fortunately selected terminology" of the
faithful dogmaticians of the seventeenth cen-
tury, a term invented by Aegidius Hunnius,
namely, that "God elected in view of faith"
("intuitu fidei"). He insisted, and Synod
with him, that "God indeed has elected only
those who believe, but not because they be-
lieve." Accordingly, the statement is made,
on page 51 of the famous Western District
report of 1877: "God foresaw nothing, ab-
solutely nothing in those whom He resolved
to save which might be worthy of salvation,
and even if it be admitted, that He foresaw
some good in them, this still could not have
determined Him to elect them for that rea-
son, for all good in man first comes from
Him, as the Scriptures teach." Certainly it
cannot be denied that Walther and the Mis-
sourians were concerned to give all glory to
God and none to man.
These statements were attacked by Pro-
343
i^octor Carl Walton
fessor F. A. Schmidt, a catechumen and stu-
dent of Walther, and a former pastor of the
Missouri Synod, at that time professor of the
Theological Seminary of the Norwegian
Synod at Madison, Wis. He had been pas-
tor of the first St. Peter's English congrega-
tion at Baltimore, and left it at the out-
break of the Civil War to accept a professor-
ship offered by the Norwegian Synod. He
had also been prominently mentioned as a
possible theological professor for Concordia,
St. Louis. In January, 1880, he published
a new theological magazine, Altes und Neues
{Old and New), in which he declared that
he must sound the alarm against the new
Cryptocalvinism of Missouri, as expressed
in the Synodical report of the Western
District of 1877. This publication had
been preceded by a private correspondence
with Walther and others. The General
President of the Missouri Synod, Pastor
Schwan, had vainly invited Professor
Schmidt and his brother-in-law. Pastor AU-
wardt, to a conference with President Fuer-
bringer in July, 1879. Moreover, appeal
was made to the Synodical Conference agree-
ment, according to which its members were
pledged, in case of any difference, to make no
public accusation or attack against each other
344
Cfte prcbegtinatton Controbergp
before every means of adjusting such differ-
ences had been exhausted. This appeal was
also in vain. Professor Schmidt printed his
magazine and published his charges, direct-
ing them primarily against Walther. In pass-
ing, it must be noted that similar charges had
been made by Professor G. Fritschel, of the
Iowa Synod, to which Walther had replied
through Lehre und Wehre^ in 1872.
Walther carefully refrained from making
any direct personal reply to the attacks of
Professor Schmidt, a member of the house-
hold of faith. Instead, the "Missourians" ap-
pealed to the President of the Synodical Con-
ference, Professor Lehmann, of Columbus,
Ohio, urging that an effort be made to pre-
vent the threatening conflict through an ex-
tra convention of that body. Professor
Lehmann took the position that he was not
authorized to call such a meeting. After
his death, on December 1, 1880, almost a
full year after the first number of Altes und
Neues had appeared, Profesor Larsen, the
Vice-President, arranged for a gathering of
all theological faculties within the Synodical
Conference, at Milwaukee, January 5, 1881.
After five days of fruitless debate, the repre-
sentatives of the Ohio Synod withdrew, de-
claring themselves to be unable, because of
345
jOoctor Carl t©altt)er
certain reasons, to remain in further attend-
ance. A motion to meet again within a year,
while refraining from all public polemics,
failed to prevail. Professor Schmidt de-
clared himself to be commanded of God to
wage this war, whereupon Walther declared,
"So be it. You wish war; you shall have
war." The conflict was on.
Meanwhile a general pastoral conference
of all ministers of the Missouri Synod had
been held in Chicago. It convened in the
church of Pastor Wagner, on September 29,
1880, and was attended by 500 pastors
from all parts of the country. Since noth-
ing had been done by the Synodical Confer-
ence to prevent the threatening breach or
restore disrupted relations, Walther and his
co-laborers felt it incumbent upon them to
do all in their power to strengthen and for-
tify the ministerium of Synod, especially
since there was talk of "the whole colossus
of the Missouri Synod breaking Into a
thousand pieces," which simply meant that
the work of a lifetime was to be undone.
Walther led the discussions at this confer-
ence, which remained in session until Octo-
ber 5. Another was held at Fort Wayne
the following year, May 23 and 24, 1881.
Stenographic reports of the proceedings at
346
Cte Prcbegtinatuin ControDergp
both of these important gatherings have been
printed. At the Fort Wayne convention of
the Delegate Synod, May 11-21, 1881, the
thirteen theses or propositions published by
Walther in Volume 36 of the Luther aner
(1880, Nos. 2-9), were adopted as a public
statement of faith on the debated questions.
They are quoted by Doctor Neve in his
"Brief History of the Lutheran Church ia
America." This convention also instructed
its delegates to the sessions of the Synodical
Conference "not to sit together and deliber-
ate with such as have publicly decried us as
Calvinists," and "not to recognize any
Synod which as a Synod has raised the same
accusation of Cahinisterei against us."
These resolutions were undoubtedly in-
vited by the publication, in February, 1881,
of the Columbus Theological Magazine, a
new theological monthly edited by Professor
M. I,oy. The titles of its two leading arti-
cles, "The Burning Question" and "Mis-
souri Retractions," sufficiently indicate its
character and tendency. The Ohio Synod
met in extra session at Wheeling, W. Va.,
in September of the same year, and resolved
to withdraw from the Synodical Conference ;
first, because it could not accept Missouri's
doctrine of predestination, and, secondly, be-
347
Poctor Catrl Waltijer
cause of the above instructions given its dele-
gates by the Missouri Synod at its Fort
Wayne convention. The vote on withdrawal
was 119 to 19. The die was cast, and the
controversy which followed was exceedingly
bitter. Pastors and congregrations withdrew
from the Ohio Synod to join the Missouri;
pastors and congregations of the Missouri
Synod withdrew to join the Ohio Synod. Not
only congregations, but families and house-
holds were divided, the husband communing
at one church, the wife at another. The in-
evitable setting up of opposition altars, not
only in cities and towns but in country mis-
sionary districts, went on apace. The polemi-
cal theological literature of the Church was
enormously increased. The zeal of both
bodies for the great, pressing work of home
missions was wonderfully stimulated. While
in some cases a "Christ of contention,"
rather than a "Christ of love," may have
been preached, we have gotten far enough
away from the personalities of those days
to say with Paul: "What then? Notwith-
standing every way, whether in pretence or
in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein
do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice" (Phil.
1 : 18). Instead of retarding the growth
and development of either Synod, the contro-
348
^t)g Prebegtinatton Controbergp
versy seems to have stimulated and accel-
erated it. In the decade, 1878-1888, the
Missouri Synod almost doubled the number
of its pastors.
On the side of doctrine there was also a
great gain. The congregations were "en-
riched in all utterance and in all knowledge,
even as the testimony of Christ was con-
firmed in them" (1 Cor. 1 : 5, 6). Ordinary
laymen kept and studied Lehre und Wehre,
besides reading and discussing the pamphlets
and brochures put forth by Walther. A
spirit of deep earnestness, which expressed
itself in unremitting effort to "hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering,"
and a striving after assurance of faith and
holiness of living, pervaded the congrega-
tions. Pastors and laymen together searched
the Scriptures and the Confessions. Nor did
they take anything for granted. The fol-
lowing incident actually occurred : A simple
fish peddler in a Detroit congregation asked
his pastor if our Lord's words, "My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me; and I give unto them eternal
life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand" (Job
10: 27, 28), were spoken of the elect or of
temporary believers. When the pastor said,
349
i^octor Carl WsAt^tv
"Of temporary believers" {Fon den Zeit-
glaubigen), he immediately replied, "So;
now I have enough. Now I know that I
must follow Doctor Walther, and not you."
A "Missourian" may be pardoned for hold-
ing that when all is said and done the Luth-
eran Church of this country will follow the
example of the fish peddler rather than that
set by men who imagine they can give all
glory to God while insisting that "in a cer-
tain respect conversion and salvation de-
pend also upon man, and not alone upon
God" — the more so when we remember that
even the opponents of the Missouri Synod
admit that they can accept Walther's "Thir-
teen Theses."
How the painful controversy affected
Walther will best appear if we quote from
several of his letters. On March 29, 1881,
he writes to a layman, who had urged him to
give up his Calvinistic errors. After thank-
ing him for his letter, he goes on to say:
"Do not imagine that I am only a Kopfge-
lehrter (a man of head learning). Fifty
years ago, by God's grace, I came through
long and severe anxiety of soul to a knowl-
edge of my sinful misery, and hereupon
through God's word and Holy Spirit, to a
living knowledge of my Saviour. And now,
350
'^tie Prebegtinatton Controbergp
since the deplorable predestination contro^
versy has arisen, I cry and plead day and
night upon my knees to God, that He will not
suffer me to fall into error, but make me
to know the truth and keep me in it until my
end, which is not far removed, for I am in
my seventieth year. But God makes me
more and more certain that the doctrine
which I confess is right. For it stands in
God's word and in the precious Confession
of our faithful Church."
On June 15, 1880, he writes to his friend,
the Senior Pastor Buerger : "I, too, am glad
to know that you do not believe the report
that T in one point have already given in.
Gladly would I do so, if God's word per-
mitted it and peace might thereby be pur-
chased, but so far nothing brought forth
against our doctrine has been able to con-
vince me of an error. My conscience is bound
in God's word; to do anything against that,
however, is 'neither safe nor prudent,' as
Luther said at Worms.
"Unto death, for which I greatly long,
"Yours, Walther."
On March 5, 1-881, he writes to another
friend: "The free grace of God in Christ
is at present, as you will understand, the mat-
ter which occupies me day and night. The
351
jOoctor Carl Walt^tx
controversy which has arisen on the doctrine
of predestination forces me to it. 'So then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy'
(Rom. 9: 16); these are the words which
constantly ring in the ear of my soul and
which God lays upon my heart as an iron
breastplate, from which all shafts of specula-
tive reason, which my opponents fire at me,
rebound. They so completely agree with
my own experience."
Under date of March 8, 1884, he writes
the same friend: "That I belong to the
brethren of the Lord and even to the 'most
lowly,' this I certainly venture to believe
upon Christ's Saviour love ; despite this, that
I from the bottom of my soul do not consider
myself worthy to be called the shoe clout
of the feet of Christ, the Lord of glory,
and despite this that just now, more than
ever, they hate me and separate me and re-
proach me and cast out my name as evil
(Luke 6:22), for I have this good confi-
dence, that it is done only 'for the Son of
man's sake,' not because I am actually a
heretical Calvinist, but because I desire to
leave glory alone, altogether alone, to my
Lord Jesus, namely, to leave this glory, that
It is His grace and mercy alone when a lost
352
Cl^e Preiieiettination Oontrobersip
sinner is found, converted and finally saved,
while he who is not found is not lost because
God did not seek him, but alone because he
would not suffer himself to be found."
That a former pupil should have in-
augurated this controversy, and that other
pupils should have associated themselves
with him in attacks which were by no means
free from personalities, and that the hope
of disrupting the great Church body he had
organized should have been publicly ex-
pressed — these things were inexpressibly bit-
ter to him, and the harder to bear because
of his failing health and strength. He did
not often complain of them, but reference to
his approaching end and an ardent desire to
be delivered from the body of this death, be-
come more and more frequent in his letters
and conversation. He had not long to wait.
But while life remained, he labored for the
great principle of his every thought and ac-
tivity, "Soli Deo Gloria" (To God alone be
glory!)
353
chapter 24
In the Luther aner of June 15, 1881,
Walther published an "Appeal to all mem-
bers of our Synod Congregations," asking
for free-will offerings to erect a new semi-
nary building upon the site occupied by the
building erected when the institution was re-
moved from its Perry County log cabin home
to St. Louis. This new building was planned
to have a front of 225 feet and a depth of 95
feet, with sixty rooms for students, a chapel
and assembly hall, a library and reading-
room and eight lecture-rooms. It was to be
built of brick, with stone trimmings, and to
cost $100,000. It is significant that the Synod
directed Walther, the President of the in-
stitution, to make this appeal, and not its
chief executive officer, the Allgetneiner
Praeses, Pastor Schwan. Walther was still
its leader in all larger undertakings. At the
convention of Synod the question had been
raised if it was not advisable to postpone the
building of the new seminary until the doc-
trinal controversy disquieting the congrega-
tions had been allayed. Walther answers
354
Clogtng l^apg
this by pointing to two things : First, that the
condition described in Acts 9:31, "Then had
the churches rest throughout all Judea and
Galilee and Samaria, and were edified," or-
dinarily obtains but seldom and for a brief
time ; and secondly, the history of the Church
shows that the Church just in periods of hot-
test conflict performed the most magnificent
works which called for the greatest sacrifices
on her part. He illustrates this with the ex-
ample of the Reformation Church, and urges,
while the present conflict is no child's play,
it is, after all, but a small thing compared
with the struggles endured by the Church
300 or 350 years before. Following the ex-
ample of our pious forefathers, we dare not
neglect the works of peace in days of strife.
He then goes on to appeal to the "insight,
the goodwill and the love" of the members
of Synod's congregations, pointing to the
blessings which God in the past thirty-four
years had graciously and abundantly poured
out upon His Church, and the responsibilities
devolving upon it through the immigration
so largely composed of its children pouring
into the great Middle West.
The response was prompt and generous.
Although the building cost $140,000, instead
of $100,000, as originally estimated, when
355
J^octor Carl Walt^tt
Delegate Synod convened at St. Louis, in
1884, almost the entire amount had been
provided for. The dedication exercises, on
September 9, 1883, a few weeks before the
40pth anniversary of Luther's birth, were at-
tended by a great congregation of 20,000
people, 160 pastors, graduates of the semi-
nary, representatives of all Synodical Con-
ference colleges, officers of District Synods,
etc. Of course, Walther, who had laid the
corner-stone on October 1, 1882, held the
festival address. The festivities lasted for
several days. True to the many-tongued
character of the Church, the program was
made up of German, English and Latin
hymns and addresses. Of course, the Gast
Lithograph Company prepared a lithograph
of the building, the vivid reds and bright
greens of which, in an appropriate frame,
decorated the front rooms of most Missouri
Synod farm houses. Walther had spoken
of it as being a monument to the love and
mercy of God and the generous gratitude of
His Christians. The people were proud of
their monument, and it is not surprising that
a picture of the college, together with a stifE
Wehle portrait of Martin Luther, a copy
of the Altenburg Bible, a Gebetschatz, and
a volume of Walther's sermons were held
356
Clo£(tng ^av6
to be Indispensable articles in every properly
furnished Lutheran home.
In 1882 and 1883 two other appeals ap-
peared in the Lutheraner, namely, appeals
for students to prepare for the holy ministry.
They were written by Pastor Otto Hanser,
of Trinity congregation, St. Louis, a member
of the College Aufsichtsbehoerde, or Board
of Trustees. In 1881 complaint had been
voiced because "so few young people are to
be found who are inclined to enter our in-
stitutions to prepare for the ministry of the
M'ord and sacraments." The reference was
to the "Practical Seminary" at Springfield.
In his appeal Pastor Hanser spoke of all the
educational institutions of Synod. He
headed it, "A Cry for Help in Great Need."
He introduces it with the statement that no
appeal was ever made through the Luther-
aner which did not find immediate and will-
ing response. He was right, for the num-
ber of students at the institutions of Synod,
especially at Springfield, promptly doubled.
At the "Practical Seminary," in 1883, tents
rented from the State militia were pitched on
the college campus to accommodate students
until provision could be made for their
proper housing. The Milwaukee congrega-
tions founded a new Concordia Gymnasium
357
doctor Carl Waltittt
in 1881, which soon threatened to rival the
original Concordia at Fort Wayne. Its first
building was dedicated January 3, 1883. A
similar institution for the East was founded
by the New York congregations, under the
leadership of Pastor Siecker and old St.
Matthew's, which, through the self-sacrific-
ing labors of Pastor Koepchen, of St. Luke's,
and Pastor Schoenfeld, of Immanuel's, has
since been developed into the splendid insti-
tution at Bronxville, Greater New York.
What Walther had said of the Church per-
forming its most magnificent works and
bringing the greatest sacrifices in periods of
hottest trial and conflict, was coming true.
The Synod also began to energetically di-
rect its attention to the establishment of Eng-
lish congregations, a work which the Synod-
ical Conference had hitherto been inclined to
leave to the Ohio Synod. The Western Dis-
trict created a Board to take charge of this
work in 1880, which, in 1882, called Pastor
A. Baepler as its traveling missionary, and
appealed for funds to the congregations of
Sjmod. The Board was far from recogniz-
ing the need of making provision for the
younger members of Synod's city congrega-
tions who might be better served by English
than by German preaching, but the machin-
358
Clositns i^aps;
ery for its support and guidance was pro-
vided, to be effectively used when the need
appeared. The Lutheran Witness, a "new
English Lutheran Family Paper," was issued
by Pastor C. A. Frank, of Zanesville, Ohio,
in 1882. Walther warmly welcomes it in the
Lutheraner, of June 1, encourages the under-
taking, and asks all "who understand Eng-
glish" to promptly become its subscribers.
The work begun at Baltimore, in Wyneken's
time, and interrupted when Pastor F. A.
Schmidt left the first St. Peter's to go to
Madison, Wis., at the outbreak of the war,
was again taken up under Walther's inspira-
tion and direction. Thus Walther had the
joy of seeing Synod "lengthen its cords and
strengthen its stakes" in every direction.
When Delegate Synod convened at St.
Louis, May 7, 1884, the General President,
Pastor Schwan, selected Ps. 126:3, "The
Lord hath done great things for us, whereof
we are glad," for the text of his opening ad-
dress. Three years before, at Fort Wayne,
May 11, 1881, he had: "My grace is suffi-
cient for thee; for my strength is made per-
fect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). As the
outcome showed, the words were almost
prophetic.
The Synodical Conference convened for
359
i^octor Carl Wall^tv
its ninth convention at Chicago, October 4,
1882. The report of the Luther aner speaks
of the "anxious fears" {"bange Befuerchtun-
gen") with which the delegates traveled to
the place of meeting. Professor F. A.
Schmidt appeared as lay delegate of a Con-
ference of the Norwegian Synod. The Mis-
souri Synod delegates protested against his
being seated as a member of the convention,
presenting a document prepared by Walther
and privately discussed by them on Octo-
ber 3. Similar protests were made in behalf
of the Wisconsin and Minnesota Synods.
The delegates of the Norwegian Synod were
divided. The result of the lengthy discus-
sions was the refusal on the part of the
Synods represented to grant Professor
Schmidt seat and voice before he admitted
that he hastily and without the necessary
negotiations and steps had accused the Synod-
ical Conference of Calvinism and broken
into its congregations, causing divisions and
ofFences. He was directly asked if he came
as a friend or opponent of the Conference.
Upon his failure to give direct answer to
these pertinent questions, the assembled
delegates refused him the desired recogni-
tion.
Although the majority of the pastors of
360
CUisttns ^api
the Norwegian Synod Inclined to the doctrine
on predestination and conversion confessed
by the Synodical Conference, the Norwe-
gians, nevertheless, withdrew from formal
connection with that body in order that they
might the more readily deal with any diffi-
culties arising In their midst. This step,
however, did not prevent a breach, for Pro-
fessor Schmidt withdrew, in 1887, with a
considerable following, to organize "the
United Norwegian IvUtheran Church."
Walther led the doctrinal discussions at
the convention of the Synodical Conference
held at Cleveland, Ohio, August 13-18, 1884.
He visited the Detroit convention, August
11-16, 1886, on his way home from Cleve-
land, where he had attended the sessions of
the Middle District, assembled August 4-10,
in the church of his son-in-law, Pastor J.
Niemann. He had previously visited, as he
said, for the last time, his children In New
York, where the entire Pastoral Conference
of the city assembled to greet him and spend
a few hours In his company. He was far
from well at the time, and he sorely missed
the companionship and loving care of his
devoted wife, who had entered into her rest
August 23, 1885. Still, he managed to lead
the doctrinal discussions at the sessions of
361
I^octor Carl Waltt^tv
the Western District, assembled at St. Louis,
October 13-19, 1886. He there completed
a work, begun thirteen years before, to which
reference has more than once been made in
this story of his life. Guenther, who was
present at the sessions, describes how he,
weakened by fever, summoned all his powers
to carry his self-imposed task to successful
completion, and finally, deeply moved and
with sobs, closed : "Now we are at an end with
our theses discussed during the past thirteen
years, in which it was shown that our Luth-
eran Church in all of these doctrines gives
all glory to God and never ascribes to the
creature the glory which belongs to the great
God. What belongs to God she also gives
Him fully. Now may the dear Lord help,
that we not alone rejoice to belong to such
a Church, but that we, too, may give Him
all glory through our faith, confession, life,
suffering and death. The motto of our life
must be, 'Soli Deo Gloria/' " It was, Guen-
ther truthfully says, the motto of his life, and
it was wonderfully fitting that it should be
his last public utterance before glorifying
his God through a Christian death.
Soon his condition became worse. Still
he continued his lectures at the seminary,
although he was urged to spare himself. On
362
Cloning i^apsi
October 25, he celebrated his seventy-fifth
birthday, receiving his fellow-professors,
relatives and friends, who gathered at his
home after their usual custom, with his
wonted courtesy and friendliness. On Wed-
nesday, November 3, he attended the local
Pastoral Conference. In the evening he con-
sented, upon representations made by the
College Board of Trustees, to discontinue
his lectures. In December his daughter
"Lenchen" came from New York to nurse
him. He was privileged to celebrate Christ-
mas in her company, and with all Christen-
dom once more to join his weak "Soli Deo
Gloria/" with the hosts of heaven, who sang
the first "Glory be to God on high !" at the
Saviour's birth.
On January 16, 1887, the second Sunday
after Epiphany, he celebrated the fiftieth an-
niversary of his ordination. What a won-
derful fifty years they had been ! An appro-
priate celebration had long been considered,
but in his weakened condition any larger func-
tion was not to be thought of. Still, the stu-
dent body gathered at his home in the early
morning to greet him with song and offer
their congratulations; appropriate sermons
were preached in the local churches; repre-
sentatives of Synod, the faculty, and the con-
363
J^octor Carl Walt^tv
gregations waited on him to give expression
to their regard and esteem. Congratulatory
letters and telegrams came from every part
of the country. Walther received the vari-
ous delegations sitting in an invalid chair,
and toward the end, while struggling to ex-
press his thanks, he broke down completely.
A letter dictated to his son, Pastor Ferdi-
nand Walther, and published in the Luther-
aner (Vol. 43, No. 3), gives wider, if not
fuller, expression to the feelings which filled
his heart.
In this letter he describes his illness as "a
complete absorption of all bodily powers,"
which prevents his walking three steps un-
aided, and even when supported by others
the attempt to Avalk ten steps robs him of his
breath and almost induces a fainting spell.
That was January 17. He lingered, grad-
ually losing strength, until the time came for
Delegate Syno'd to convene at Fort Wayne,
on May 4. In his opening address President
Schwan made most touching reference to
Walther's condition and the futility of hop-
ing for any improvement. "We must," he
said, "make up our minds that the next
moment may bring us the news of his depart-
ing." The news came on the evening of
Saturday, May 7. Pastor Stoeckhardt had
364
CloKtns J^ap£(
remained at St. Louis to be with him. On
Friday night, after praying with him at his
request, Pastor Stoeckhardt asked a question
similar to that asked of Luther on the night
of his death by his friends, Jonas and Coelius,
to which the dying hero of the faith an-
swered with an audible "Yes." Stoeckhardt
asked Walther if he stood ready to cheer-
fully die upon the grace of Christ, which he
had proclaimed all his life ? to which question
Walther, too, answered with an audible
"Yes." He lingered, seemingly without
pain, pitiably weak, yet fully conscious, until
5.30 Saturday evening, when he quietly and
peacefuly fell asleep in his Lord.
At the request of Synod the funeral serv-
ices were postponed until May 17, in order
that the pastors and delegates might attend.
Synod continued and closed its sessions in St.
Paul's Church, which was draped in black
by the Fort Wayne congregations. On Fri-
day, May 13, the body of their beloved
teacher was borne from Walther's residence
by eight students to the seminary, where it
lay in state under student guard until Sunday
afternoon, when it was taken to Trinity
Church to await its interment on Tuesday.
At the funeral services President Schwan
preached on the 90th Psalm, Professor Crae-
365
J^octor Carl Walt^btv
mer spoke on 2 Kings 2:12, and Pastor Otto
Hanser, at the grave, on Dan. 12 : 2, 3. Pro-
fessor Larsen also spoke in behalf of the
Norwegian Synod. All the Synods of the
Synodical Conference had sent representa-
tives, and Guenther remarks : "At no funeral
services of a theologian in America did so
many theologians take part. The city of St.
Louis has hardly seen a larger funeral."
"Walther was verily carried to his grave like
a prince and great one of the kingdom of
God," says Hanser. As the funeral pro-
cession, on its way to Trinity Cemetery,
passed the seminary, his beloved Concordia,
it stopped for a silent, solemn moment at the
scene of his earthly labors for the upbuild-
ing unto true concord and unity of the faith-
ful Lutheran Church of America. His mor-
tal body was laid in its last resting place at
the side of his beloved wife, to await the
resurrection unto glory at the coming of the
Lord. A gothic mausoleum, with a life-sized
statue of Walther, was placed over the two
graves by the St. Louis congregation and his
friends. It was dedicated with a simple serv-
ice on June 12, 1892. True, he did not need
this memorial to be remembered, for "the
memory of the just is blessed." Even as it Is
written : "Blessed are the dead which die in
366
Ctoging i^apg
the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labors;
and their works do follow them." Having
been erected, one cannot but wish that room
had been found to place upon its granite
walls in letters of imperishable bronze, the
motto of his life, the thought which inspired
his every word and deed:
"Soli Deo Gloria!"
367
Ct)apter 25
Cfje Cfieologian
The Book of Books, which may not incor-
rectly be called a collection of biographies,
because God teaches men through the experi-
ence of other men, never presents what we
call a character study or a character anal-
ysis. It quietly and simply tells the story of a
man's life and words and deeds, and then
leaves it to us to draw conclusions and make
applications, which is the more easy because
it never hides his weaknesses nor covers up
his shortcomings. One is tempted to do the
same thing and close this book with the ac-
count of Walther's death.
But so much would remain unsaid. The
necessity is apparent of saying something of
Walther as a preacher, as a pastor, as a pro-
fessor, as an editor and writer, as a mission-
ary, as a friend and companion; of his rela-
tions with other men of eminence in the
kingdom of God; of his theological studies
and position; of his writings, which would in-
clude not merely his books, but the many
articles scattered in the various publications
of the Missouri Synod. These should some
368
'Ciie <^^toloiim
day be collected and published in one com-
plete edition of his works. A chapter might
readily be devoted to each of these subjects.
But it would carry us too far. We must con-
tent ourselves with a few brief notes. They
will suffice to show that Walther with right
was carried to his grave "as a prince and
great one in the kingdom of God." And
here the tributes which his biographer, Guen-
ther, collected with such affectionate care, be-
sides his published letters, will again be of
great help.
''Walther," Guenther says, "was a great
theologian." He might have said that it is
difficult or impossible to think of him as be-
ing anything else. Just as theology to him
"is a wisdom from on high" ("eine JVeis-
heit von oben her") — we are quoting from a
splendid article on "Doctor C. F. W.
Walther as a Theologian," written by his
grateful pupil, Doctor Franz Piper, and
printed in Lehre und JVehre, 1888 — so
Walther himself is a theologian "von ober
her" — a true Gottesgelehrter (a man
"taught of God"). "The Holy Spirit alone
makes D.Ds.," remarks Walther with refer-
ence to a saying of Luther's, who so sharply
distinguishes between the creation of "Doc-
tor of Holy Scriptures" and "Doctors of
369
l^octor Carl WaV^tv
Science, of Medicine, of Laws," etc. Doctor
Piper then goes on to apply and illustrate
Luther's famous axiom, "Oratio, Meditatio,
Tentatio Faciunt Theologum," with quota-
tions from his personal experience. Walther,
he says, first makes the point that only a sin-
cere Christian can be a true theologian, that
an unconverted man may, at the most, be
"a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."
He then warns against the abuse of this
truth, which prompts some sects to despise
all learning. He insists upon diligent effort
to acquire the most thorough theological
training. He agrees with Melanchthon, who
said, "An unlearned theology is an Ilias of
evils." He urges that men like Chemnitz,
Gerhard, Calov, aye, Luther himself, be-
came great theologians not through their
great natural gifts, but through their un-
flagging diligence and unremitting applica-
tion. Still, he refuses to overestimate mere
intellectual and scientific training. Theol-
ogy to him is more than a science, a Wissen-
schaft. It is a divinely wrought "habitus,"
a practical ability and capability to do one
certain thing, namely, by the teaching and
preaching of the Holy Scriptures to make
fallen, sinful men wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Ac-
370
Ctie Ctieologtatt
cordingly, the true theologian is absolutely
dependent upon the inspired word of God.
It is for him to say, "Speak, Lord, for Thy
servant heareth," and, having heard, to
speak to others.
These fev/ sentences are far from being
a synopsis of Doctor Piper's splendid article,
but they will suffice to help us form an esti-
mate of Walther as a theologian.
He was a sincere, earnest Christian, a
man who knowing himself to be a lost and
condemned sinner, rested all his hope of sal-
vation upon Jesus Christ, his Saviour. The
living faith which saved him from despair dur-
ing his student days at Leipzig, remained the
sheet anchor of his soul. He never lost it.
It is always in evidence. It shows itself even
in such little things as the close of his let-
ters, where he writes, "Your most humble
fellow in trial and the kingdom," "Yours,
longing for everlasting life," "Your closely
united brother in Him who loved us unto
death and is now seated on the throne to pour
out upon us the blessings He has gained,"
"Your friend and brother in the Lord Jesus,"
"Your faithful father and intercessor with
God." The fruits of the Spirit, the chief
of which is faith, show themselves in what
we ordinarily call little things, "love, joy,
371
l^octor Carl Walt^tv
peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness,
meekness, temperance." One must be rather
intimately associated with a man to see them.
All . of Walther's associates testify to his
spirituality and high-minded Christian char-
acter.
He was a man of prayer. Oratio
(prayer), is the first ingredient of Luther's
recipe for the making of a theologian. For
what TertuUian said of Christians especially
applies to them; they are not born but made
— made by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
Prayer. Therefore, of all men, the theo-
logian must "pray without ceasing." It is
the very breath of his life. Here, again,
Walther's letters are the best of proof that
he cultivated the habit of prayer. They are
full of little ejaculatory prayers, half uncon-
scious little petitions and sighs. Even his
written prayers, prepared for the opening of
congregational and other meetings, a volume
of which has been published, show that they
were prayed before they were written. The
other ingredient of Luther's recipe is Medita-
tio (study). He was a thorough student,
above all things of the Scriptures, the in-
spired word of God. Doctor Piper dwells
at length in the above quoted article on
Walther's doctrine of inspiration. He says
372
Cfje Cfjeologian
that Walther, "during his entire activity as
a teacher, not only with fullest conviction
stood for the old Church doctrine of inspira-
tion, but designated the giving up of this doc-
trine as the falling away in principle from
Christianity." Next to the Scriptures he
studied Luther and the Confessions. From
the day when he first began to read his col-
lected writings in his father's library and
searched them again at the home of Pastor
Keyl, at Frohna, when preparing for the
Altenburg debate, down to the very end of
his life, he studied Luther. He was thus
well qualified to prepare a paper for the
District Conference of Missouri on "The
Fruitful Reading of Luther's Writings,"
which ends with this advice: "Man mache
sick mit seiner Luther-ausgabe so bekannt,
dass man jede Schrift ohne viel zeitrau-
bendes Nachschlagen finden kann" ("One
ought to make one's self so familiar with
one's Luther edition, that one can find every
writing without much time-robbing pag-
ing") (Lehre und Wehre, 33, p. 305).
The English is stiff, but his meaning is clear.
"A pupil of Luther," he says of himself,
"and, as I hope to God, a faithful pupil, I
have only stammered after this prophet of
the last world all that I have hitherto pub-
373
J^octor Carl Waltiitt
licly spoken and written."
He was equally well read in the great
teachers of the Church, especially the Luth-
eran fathers of the sixteenth century, whom
he regarded as standing much higher in
Lutheran orthodoxy than the men of the sev-
enteenth century. He is always quoting them.
His edition of "Baier's Compendium," with
critical notes and annotations, is proof suffi-
cient of the enormous range of his reading
and the thoroughness of his Meditatio. But
he never slavishly followed any of them.
He proved all things with the touchstone of
the inspired word, keeping that which is
good. While he, with great modesty, pre-
ferred that they should speak, and quoted
them because he felt that they said things
better than he himself could say them. Doc-
tor Piper is undoubtedly right when he says
that "Walther, as respects spiritual experi-
ence, theological learning, logical acumen,
and the gift of presentation, certainly does
not stand behind the most of our theologians,
and, in our judgment, he surpasses many of
them in these things." (Lehre und Wehre,
33, p. 266.)
Besides prayer and study, Luther says
Tentatio (trial) is necessary for the making
of a theologian. Scriver in his "Treasury
374
Cte Cfieolosian
of Souls," says It like this : "Small clocks only
need small weights. But great clocks in
high church towers need very heavy
weights." In other words, great theologians
like Paul, who had his thorn in the flesh,
need an especially heavy load of trial.
Walther had his. He was rich In tribula-
tion. SIhler, whose ripened experience made
him a shrewd observer, noticed it at their
first meeting. He said that the expression
of his face, although he was only thirty-five,
was strangely aged, in all probability through
the many and severe conflicts he had to en-
dure. His early religious experience at
Leipzig, his trials In his first congregation
at Braunsdorf, the struggle which led up to
the determination to emigrate, his relations
with Stephan, the fearful disappointment at
his hypocrisy, the accusations and suspicions
of the people, the doubts which assailed him
together with the other pastors and candi-
dates, the jeers and contempt of the world,
the privations and conflicts of his first years
at Trinity congregation — ^what a load It was
for a high-minded soul with a more than
sensitive conscience to carry. Then came the
controversy with Grabau and the Buffalo
Synod, with Loehe and the Iowa Synod, and,
most bitter of all, the controversy within the
375
{doctor Carl Waltbtt
Synodlcal Conference. How these things af-
fected him appears from a letter he wrote
to his life-long friend, Doctor Franz De-
litzsch, and quoted by the latter in his "Zeit-
geschichtliche Gedanken," in the "Pilger aus
Sachsen" : "Believe me, with my polemics
I am very often in the position of Joseph,
who spoke roughly unto his brethren, and
then went into his chamber to weep out his
heart, and only after he had washed his face
again showed himself to the people."
To this we must add the bodily weakness
and infirmities which necessitated his seeking
a cure in Europe, the care of all the churches
which came upon him daily, the cares of fam-
ily life and the boundless sympathy with
which he entered into and shared the cares
of others. Above all, there were the spirit-
ual trials, the Anfechtungen, which at times
threw him into deepest despondency, as
during that most trying period after the un-
masking of Stephan and before the Alten-
burg debate. He was spared nothing. What-
ever reproach came to the Missouri Synod
came first to him. No wonder Doctor Sihler
called him "unser General-kreuztraeger"
(Our general crossbearer). No wonder his
favorite close to his letters was, "Your com-
panion in tribulation and in the kingdom,"
376
Ciie CfteoloBfan
An old friend of his tells how he once
came to him, when Walther, with an almost
tearful look and the saddest of expressions,
greeted him with the words, "Oh, if only I
might die I" He later asked Walther what
had most helped him in his trials, and he
said, "The holy communion."
So there was no lack of tentatio, even as
there was no lack of or alio and meditatio.
The result was a theologian, a real man of
God. Of course, there was a foundation to
build on, for God had endowed him with
splendid gifts of mind. Judicium and In-
genium, Guenther calls them (how they
love those precise Latin terms!) (judg-
ment and insight), combined with a love
of poetry and a feeling for beauty of form
and expression; a wonderful memory, a
strong win and a hatred of all duplicity and
double dealing. With all his talent for or-
ganization, he never sacrificed a truth or
a principle in the interest of some move or
arrangement which expediency might appear
to suggest or demand. The compromises
of petty Church politicians were most dis-
tasteful to him, as they must be to every
upright Christian man, and when he had
once convinced himself of the truth of a
doctrine or correctness of Its application, he
377
J^octor Carl Walt^tx
was immovable. It was, therefore, but
natural that he should have been accused
of loving to rule and being unwilling to
brook any criticism or contradiction. That
his opinion should carry weight and author-
ity, that his advice should be sought and val-
ued, that he should be respected and honored
as a teacher and leader, was only to be ex-
pected. It would have been most strange if
this were not the case. That he ever abused
any authority he may have possessed, or re-
fused to receive correction when mistaken,
remains to be proved. What can be proved
is this: Walther was a most humble Chris-
tian. He earnestly sought to know his sins
and weaknesses, and to struggle against them.
Wherever he unwittingly offended or hurt
any man, he was most eager to promptly
admit his fault, making the fullest possible
apology and seeking pardon. Nor can it
be truthfully said that he could brook no
contradiction. Any man who was associated
with such independent characters as Wyne-
ken, Sihler, Craemer, Lange and Fuer-
bringer, was bound to meet with contradic-
tion and criticism. But he not only accepted
it from them. He humbly and cheerfully ac-
cepted it from the most simple layman. On
one occasion a Christian woman in a Michi-
378
Ctie Ctieologtan
gan congregation directed his attention to a
certain paragraph of his "Pastoral Theol-
ogy," warning him, if he acted otherwise,
that he would be guilty of a grave error of
judgment and do a great wrong. He grate-
fully received the warning and acted upon
the advice. He possessed none of that cold
reserve almost unconsciously acquired by
men whose very eminence compels them to
stand alone. A cultured Christian gentle-
man, he ever "let his moderation be known
to all men," and was especially courteous and
friendly with people who chanced to occupy
a station inferior to his own. His more
blunt Plattdeutsch friend, Wyneken, called
him "dieser hoefliche Sachse" ("this polite
Saxon"). "Please," he writes to his son-in-
law, Keyl, "also greet for me most solicit-
ously and respectfully your splendid house-
friend, Mr. Westerward, who has become
so dear to me, and again express to him my
most sincere thanks for all the undeserved
kindnesses shown me." Mr. Westerward
had, without his knowledge, gotten him
sleeping car tickets from New York to St.
Louis. Then, for fear that he may have
overlooked something, he adds, "Finally also
greet your dear housemaid for me." If she,
after the German custom, brushed his coat
379
i^octor Carl ll^alttier
or handed him his hat, the "polite Saxon"
v/ould try to remember it for a lifetime.
These gifts, sanctified by the spirit of prayer,
disciplined by unremitting study of the word,
ripened by Christian experience of trial,
made him a great theologian in a Church
of theologians.
He thus needed no doctor's degree to be-
come a "teacher of teachers" in the Church.
He was that from the very first day of his
activities as professor at the little school of
the prophets which in 1850 was removed
from Perry County to St. Louis, and which
housed its six seminarists and ten students
under one roof with their teacher. While
the intimate relations thus induced could not
possibly continue, he always remained the
spiritual father of the entire student body,
solicitous not merely to establish in them a
clear, precise knowledge of Christian doc-
trine, but, above all, to influence their hearts
and consciences. Doctor Piper says : "Most
of his students will doubtless testify that they,
through his theological instructions, received
rich furtherance in their spiritual life. All
his teaching was at the same time both in-
structive and edifying. One or the other of
his pupils came to a living faith in Christ just
in his lecture room."
380