Biography

“Rome has never acknowledged her errors nor admitted her moral defeat. The lessons of past history are wasted upon her… A recent Catholic writer correctly says: ‘There is no doubt that the religious problem today is still the Luther problem.

“It is a mistake to regard everything in Talmudic writings about ‘the Gentiles’ as presently applying to Christians… That ‘the heathens’ of those days and lands should have been suspected of almost any abomination, deemed capable of any treachery or cruelty towards Israel—no student of history can deem strange…

Includes an account of Alfred Edersheim’s conversion from Judaism to Christianity. Book Contents About The Author Frontispiece Titlepage Preface Memoir Tohu-va-vohu Index Of Subjects Publication Information Lutheran Library edition first published: 2023 Copyright: CC BY 4.

“It is a mistake to regard everything in Talmudic writings about ‘the Gentiles’ as presently applying to Christians… That ‘the heathens’ of those days and lands should have been suspected of almost any abomination, deemed capable of any treachery or cruelty towards Israel—no student of history can deem strange…

“In 1906, Dr. Henry Eyster Jacobs, then in his sixty-second year, wrote these notes on his experiences in the leadership of the Lutheran Church. As he states in his opening sentence, these notes are set down for the use of others.

“The history of the Church confirms and illustrates the teachings of the Bible, that yielding little by little leads to yielding more and more, until all is in danger; and the tempter is never satisfied until all is lost.

“Lutheranism clings to God’s Written Word. Her motto is the Word of God, the whole Word of God, and nothing but the Word of God, not as a prescriptive letter, but as the power of God unto salvation.

“Why did I leave the ministry when I left the Congregational church? Because, in the first place, my New Theology and Higher Criticism had destroyed my faith in the perfect, divine authority of the Bible; and in the second place, they had destroyed my faith in the perfect deity of Christ.

“Formerly the whole Evangelical Lutheran Church was unanimous in the conviction that Luther was the divinely commissioned Reformer of the Church and the herald of divine truth. But now (many) deny him this honor.

“Led by the Jesuits and their counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church has never ceased to try to destroy the enlightened order of religious freedom and democracy that has resulted from the revolt of the Christian people in the sixteenth century against the authoritarianism and corruption of the Church of Rome.

“In the Church… influential men (opposed) genuine Lutheranism. They clung ardently to the name, and gloried in their ecclesiastical ancestry; but they held that under that name they could be Calvinists, Zwinglians, or Arminians.

“I fear those ministers among us who seem to be terribly afraid of Pietism. They do not explain the distinction between a false and a true Pietism. To have ever a greater and deeper measure of the latter is surely one of our greatest needs.

The Rev. Phineas D. Gurley, D.D., Mr. Lincoln’s pastor while President, writes: “I have had frequent and intimate conversations with him [Lincoln] on the subject of the Bible and the Christian religion, when he could have had no motive to deceive me, and I considered him sound, not only on the truth of the Christian religion, but on all its fundamental doctrines and teachings.

“Professor Jacobs is an exceptionally sympathetic and competent biographer… (He) has availed himself of all the latest sources of information, and done the needful work of selection and condensation with excellent judgment and skill.

John Lehmanowsky was born in Warsaw in 1773 to a Jewish family, and as a young man he converted to Christianity. Through a series of events he became known to Napoleon, and took part in many campaigns including the destruction of the Inquisition at Madrid.

“The Life of Dr. Passavant should have been given to the Church at least a decade ago… Such lives are lived for others. They are not over when those who lived them are gone, but being dead they yet speak.

“Dr. Weidner was never affected by the wanderings and vagaries of liberal Theology. He stood four-square and firm on the old foundations of orthodox Lutheranism. He wanted every point proved by Scripture.

“Amid other employments in this the evening of his long and useful life, Mr. East has, we think, been wisely guided to revise and publish these remarkable pastoral experiences. They include some exceedingly interesting cases of conversion and spiritual revival.

“If ever any man was competent to write on true Christianity, that man was John Arndt. It had become his very life; it entered into the very center of his own experience; it was an essential part of his being, and hence it was only necessary to let the mouth utter that, of which the heart was full.

“Twice we heard Henry Watterson deliver his classical lecture on Abraham Lincoln. At the most dramatic point in the address the speaker discussed the problem, how to account adequately for the great president.