In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan's Journey
Page 18
On the day they sailed, November 18, Pastor Stephan finally published his own goodbye wishes:
Farewell of the Old Lutheran Congregation which is emigrating from Saxony to North America.
Before leaving Germany and Europe we wish to send a friendly greeting and farewell to the friends we leave behind us. At last we are delivered from the hands of our enemies, after suffering calumny and persecution for many years. In peace, we depart for that part of the world, whose liberty of religion and conscience are known not only by name, and where the slandered have also the liberty to defend themselves publicly.
We are departing with painful memories of the many bitter experiences through which we have passed. But we are not forgetful of many favors, which were shown us by persons in high and low estate. Our hearts are filled with sincere gratitude towards all, who have so energetically and lovingly aided us in our abandoned condition. As regards our many enemies, we shall take to heart the words of our Lord Jesus Christ; “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that spitefully entreat you and persecute you.”
If you, our friends, whom we are leaving behind, will follow us in spirit, you will see an old Lutheran congregation sailing the sea under the protection of the Lord, in five oceangoing vessels. Six ministers with about seven hundred souls, among them ten ministerial candidates and four teachers are peacefully journeying to a place, where, unmolested, they may preserve, according to their best knowledge and conscience, the faith of their fathers, serve God, and in the same faith make peaceful pilgrimage through this time to eternity.
Bremerhaven, November 18, 1838.
Signed, MARTIN STEPHAN, Pastor.11
The last of the five ships to sail was the Amalia, a smaller schooner brig of only 190 tons cargo capacity. This boat was under the command of Captain Wilmans. Although sixty-eight passengers had been booked, only fifty-nine passengers boarded the ship. Twelve passengers either did not show or joined another ship as had Pastor C. F. W. Walther. These twelve berths still were billed to the Emigration Society. After Walther changed ships he appointed the pastoral candidate Welzel to take charge of pastoral functions on the Amalia. The Amalia sailed on the same day as the Olbers, November 18, 1838, and headed straight into a storm in the North Sea. After the second day at sea she was never heard from again. The diaries of people sailing on the other ships reveal that the fate of the Amalia was not learned until sometime after all the ships had arrived in the Bay of New Orleans.
The Amalia carried the organ, the musical instruments, and a part of the library for this church community. Among that library were hymnals for the congregation. Pastor O. H. Walther composed and printed five hymns to be used on the ocean voyage. The first edition of these hymns, printed for the passengers of the Copernicus and the Johann Georg, were called Songs of Exiles upon the Sea. O. H. Walther had intended the songs to be a contribution to the spiritual supplies for the benefit of the apostolic Lutheran congregation “fleeing for the sake of their most holy faith with the loyal servant of God and confessor of the truth, Martin Stephan, from Saxony to North America, October 31, 1838” (the date of the Festival of the Reformation). They were dedicated to “The Honorable Pastor M. Stephan in filial recognition and thanks from O. H. W. (Otto Hermann Walther), Bremen, the 5th of November, 1838.” This collection of songs has the title “Crux Christi Nostra Gloria,.“12 Of course to the Bohemians in the group, those who remembered the exiled Bohemian founders of the St. John’s congregation and also the ancestors of Martin Stephan, these ”Songs for Exiles” had a familiar ring that recalled previous ancestral exits from their homelands.
NOTES
1 William Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838” (unpublished ms., Stephan Family Archives and Concordia Historical Institute, 1935), 91–92.
2 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 93.
3 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 94, and William Koepchen, “Conference Notes,” trans. Axel Reitzig (unpublished ms., Stephan Family Archives, 1934), 27. For a more detailed version of the abduction of the Walther children see Walter O. Forster, Zion on the Mississippi (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 194.
4 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 94–95.
5 Carl Eduard Vehse, The Stephanite Emigration to America: With Documentation, trans. Rudolph Fiehler (1840; Tuscon: M. R. Winkler, 1975), 6.
6 Forster, Zion on the Mississippi, 195. Forster quotes an exclamation by J. A. Friedrich, a Walther biographer in Ebenezer, that when Walther jumped ship to avoid the police and was spared drowning, “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” Other accounts inferred that the Schubert children were saved from all the godless secular education in Germany, so the kidnapping was done for a good purpose.
7 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 103.
8 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 105 A.
9 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,“105 B.
10 Koepchen, “Conference Notes,” 41.
11 Koepchen, “Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 104–5.
12 Koepchen, “Conference Notes,” part 2, p. 30. These Songs of the Exiles authored by O. H. Walther and dedicated to Martin Stephan had the dedication name Crux Christi Nostra Gloria, the cross of Christ is our Glory. These exiles from Germany were not driven out but for many of them they were exiles now upon the Sea. Many of their ancestors had fled Bohemia and Moravia and Pastor Stephan too had fled for his life from the town of Stramberg.
16
Journey at Sea
With the voyage well underway for the first three ships and now just days old for the passengers of the Olbers and Amalia, some of the voyagers kept diaries of the sailing.
These diaries turned out to be some of the best sources of information about the voyage. Selections from them have appeared in the many accounts written about the Saxon Emigration to Missouri. Among the surviving diaries are those kept by some of the principals: Eduard Vehse, G. H. Loeber, Gotthold Guenther, and O. Fuerbringer. Martin Stephan V apparently kept a diary that seems to have disappeared, and so his account is not available at this time. The following excerpts are from the Koepchen translation of the Gotthold Guenther diary, with some notes from Vehse’s diary interspersed in the story of the sail to America. Both Vehse and Guenther were passengers on the Olbers with Pastor Stephan. Gotthold Guenther’s diary is written in William Koepchen’s second unpublished manuscript titled “Conference Abstract.” Most of Guenther’s diary is reproduced here.
The Olbers and the Amalia had left Bremerhaven under most favorable weather conditions, but storm and seasickness began it ravages the day after leaving port and for the next three weeks made life in the crowded ships very unpleasant. The first death on board the Olbers occurred November 26th, when the three year old son of Mr. and Mrs. (Adolf) Marbach died of apoplexy. The ship’s carpenter built a little coffin and in this the remains of the child were solemnly committed to still turbulent sea. Pastor Stephan delivered a touching address and the assembled congregation sang:
Now rest, my child, and slumber,
No cares thy bed encumber,
But angels undefiled!
Our ship is still a-sailing,
Our Pilot, true, unfailing
Is Christ, the dear and holy Child.
It must, indeed have been a heartrending moment for the dear parents to look down into the wildly foaming flood which was to accept their darling forever in this life in its gloomy lap. They were not even granted the opportunity to cry out their pain at a green burial mound.
Guenther reports that the storm peaked two days later, November 28, when two sailors were “torn from the rudder.” The storm persisted until the first break December 4.
On Sunday December 2, the ship’s community celebrated the beginning of
a new church year. Because of the stormy sea, a public worship service could not be held on deck. The ministerial candidates assembled smaller groups. Advent songs rang out throughout the ship’s rooms and the groups sang full of fervor:
Be happy, little Christian flock,
Today riding on the ocean’s waves,
Comes a new church year from the Lord,
Therefore, let us sing hosannas on the sea today.
Hosanna! Waves of the sea,
Ring out with us.
Jump up and swell to honor the Lord,
So he can come to us on the sea.
Come, O Jesu, enter in, our little ship is open to you.
Come with you light of mercy,
Teach us to believe, suffer, hope,
Be our pilot on our way to Canaan.
Come, you great man of wonders,
Wind and waves obey you.
Break way for us through the waves, make the sails swell.
Think not of our misdeeds that deserve only storm.
The song, written by O. H. Walther in his Gloria Christi, Nostra Gloria, so wonderful in its simplicity, expresses both their vulnerability and their great hope.
On December 4, a favorable wind swelled the sails of the Olbers and on the same day the ship entered the great Atlantic Ocean from the stormy Bay of Biscay.1 On the next day at total calm, the advent service could be held. It was led by Pastor O. H. Walther.
December 9 finally brought a clear and warm Sunday and Pastor Stephan embraced the opportunity to conduct a public service on the deck. In the afternoon, a barrel of beer was distributed to ’tween deck travelers. School was held almost daily by one of the candidates. Prayers and song followed in the evenings almost everyday.
Walter O. Forster reports an additional entry for December 9 taken from notes by someone he calls D. H. (perhaps it was D. H. Steffens who transcribed the notes of P. F. Hanewinkel). The entry is Forster’s longhand marginal notation in his transcription of Gotthold Guenther’s diary. It states that on this Sunday, December 9, Pastor Stephan preached a “very bitter” sermon. Pastor Stephan told the people on the Olbers that,
[h]e was disappointed in the selection of his flock. They were not worthy to be under his protection. They were of little faith and despondent and now he must bear all things patiently for their sake even as he had sacrificed and forsaken everything for their sake. Tears flowed down his face as he admonished them to become better. Some began to see him as a true martyr of his faith.2
Forster makes no judgment about this “bitter sermon.” Curiously, there is little reason given by Guenther or Forster for Stephan’s depressing and stern disciplinary tone. It may be that he was responding to the horrendous stress of three weeks of severely stormy weather, seasickness, and his inability to eat. He found no peace to recover from the strenuous court trials in Dresden and leaving his family behind him.
Stephan’s remarks are out of character. He was seasick and frightened during the three weeks of storms at sea. His own depression was coming into the open. It seems likely that complaining and arguing among the Society, not only about accommodations and food but also money, triggered his angry sermon. He may have taken their complaints as criticism and as a personal assault on his leadership. This minor crisis would pass, but the underlying problem of complaints and criticism of the bishop’s leadership would emerge again and again. Stephan handled this particular crisis poorly. Later, he would have a chance to improve his management of problems among the Society.
The Guenther diary excerpts continue,
Again, on December 16, the public worship service was held on deck, however, as soon as Pastor Walther had announced the theme of his sermon, “Why have we emigrated?” a quickly developing rain squall interrupted the continuation of his presentation. Everybody hurried to the ’tween deck, and the conclusion of the sermon followed at evening prayers.
On December 19, the two-year-old boy of Miller Zeibig died of tooth fever. The remains of the dead child were lowered into the water on the same evening. The funeral ceremonies were led by Pastor Walther.
On December 23, the continuous motion of the ship prevented having the worship service on deck.
Christmas Day, December 25, a Tuesday brought warm, beautiful weather. Stephan gave the sermon and over the calm waves of the sea rang out the singing of the celebrating community assembled on deck.
Some verses of this Christmas hymn by O. H. Walther from the songs also called the Exulanten Lieder are included here:
Now sing; praise to God on high. Christians on the sea today,
Together with the angels joyfully present our song of praise to the Savior.
As in old time, at mealtime, Noah was happy in his ark,
When the pigeon flew to him, bearing the olive leaf in his beak.
The Lord who has created heaven, earth and sea,
The most important image lies wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Lord Jesus, Holy Child, let this ship be your cradle.
Sleep here in your glory at this holy Christmas time.
Remember your little flock and show it here on earth
A cradle of Christ to rest in and grow in strength and wisdom.3
A Koepchen editorial statement inserted here demonstrates the obvious defense of later criticisms that emerged against Stephan. Koepchen quotes from Eduard Vehse’s book:4 “Pastor Stephan abstained from conducting public worship and preaching because he was too lazy.” However, Koepchen believed that Stephan’s health was poor before the journey. During the voyage he was reported to have severe seasickness continuously for three weeks. The ship’s crew needed the deck, especially during heavy storms. The Olbers enjoyed but one rain- or storm-free day, which was Christmas day. Pastor Stephan then conducted public worship on the deck, and delivered the sermon.5 Other services were conducted by the other pastors and teachers below decks when it was stormy.
Guenther’s diary continues, recounting their sighting of land for the first time in weeks. He also noted the signs of the group’s heavy stress:
On December 26, the second Christmas Day, the servant Klemm (Martin Stephan’s servant) fell into the ship’s lower hold through an open hatch and broke two ribs. Dr. Schnabel treated him. The New Year’s Eve worship service was led by Pastor Walther.
Another diary elaborates the events of December 31, 1838. Theodore Julius Brohm, a ministerial candidate, kept a journal of the voyage as did one appointed diarist for each ship.
Brohm tells the story of New Year’s Eve, how Stephan and a few of his “close” associates were gathered in one of the ship’s quarters. He wrote that Stephan read from Joshua chapter 22. Stephan told how the tribes of Israel were divided into two-and-a-half tribes who desired to be part of God’s people and nine-and-a-half tribes who were a bit rebellious. The former group was to inherit a choice piece of land beyond the Jordan and built an altar as a sign indicating that the God of Israel is their God. Not to be outdone, the other nine-and-a-half tribes demanded an explanation of this transaction. What did the other tribes mean by this altar? Did they want to be separate from the rest of the tribes. Did they have the same God? The first two-and-a-half tribes were distressed and stated that it would be foreign for them to become faithless to the Lord. Then Stephan applied this situation of divisiveness to the Society. He said to his friends,
Take note, such is the nature of our common God; and I invite you to ask yourselves most ungently [sic] whether that is also the state of your mind. Do you help the society or your self ... Have our brothers and the other side of the Jordan also the correct beliefs and worship service. Examine it. How should the common God appear. I miss in you the concern. What are the brethren doing? ... You are young. I have nothing more to seek in the world. I wish, however, that my evening years might be more peaceful than my days were. I don’t ask for very much for myself; of you, however, I request much. Finish learning this chapter; examine how the members of the congregation demonstrate their participation, their
ability to sacrifice, how they ought to express the proper solicitude as God’s people.
What is the status here on the ship? What evidence is there of the faith demonstrated in brotherly love? How much concern is there for the brethren? ... In this regard, take note at the end of the year. Consider it well and ask to what do you attribute your tranquility? Are you traveling to the devil or to Christ? This is my wish and prayer at the end of the old and the beginning of the new year. Learn this chapter by heart ... Do you want to go where the Lord is not with you? Do you want to be a congregation over which the Lord does not keep watch: No, and I don’t either.
I assure you at the closing of this year, I am tired. I no longer desire to lead the congregation. I seek nothing for myself. I shouldn’t, as a 60 year old man, have to bear false worry and trouble. I will to God that someone else would lead you. I would be the first to reach out my hand to him. However, as long as I am the leader, I demand obedience. How often have I told you that I would rather be a bee keeper, and that is my complete desire. However, if I am to lead you, then follow me; otherwise, I won’t lead you! Otherwise I won’t lead you! Note this well, so that later on you don’t say, “That is a hard man.”
I have left behind my children. I would also leave you, although I have love for you. Do you want that? I will not forsake you; however, I would do it if you are of another mind set. That certainly is my disposition. You must indicate to me what you want. I will do nothing that is against God’s will and truth. So, then it is agreed and if my father and my mother, who were very much loved by me, had come to me and said, “Please stay!” Then I would have said to them, “I cannot”; I was not required to go with you to America, even though I have emigrated. I could still find admittance in Europe in various localities, if only I were willing to remain silent.