USA > Indiana > Our church, a history of the synod of Northern Indiana of the Evangelical Lutheran Church > Part 17
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REV. AMBROSE H. SCHERER.
It is to him a source of joy that among those whom he received into the church and started on their christian career he now finds three-Rev. B. F. Stultz, Rev. D. F. Kain and Rev. Abraham Leathers, faithfully and successfully preaching the gospel, and several others preparing for the ministry. Ilis work will thus be perpetuating itself for many years to come. Rev. Biddle is very highly esteemed and very dearly beloved by the Synod which licensed and ordained him to his sacred office, and in which almost his entire ministerial life was spent.
REV. AMBROSE H. SCHERER.
The pioneer preachers of this Synod were busy men. Their work was attended with the greatest difficulties and hardships. They were pious and devoted and were content in using the means which God placed in their hands. They were not indifferent to the results of their labor, but they showed no desire to exhibit these before the world. Their records are often imperfectly kept. It is sometimes impossible therefore to gain the facts necessary to present a true history of their lives. Much as this is to be desired, we must in some instances content ourselves with the thought that there is a record in which all has been faithfully entered.
Only a fragmentary history of the active life of Rev. Scherer can be given. Of his abundant labors in gathering souls into the kingdom very little has been recorded. It is, however, of such a nature as to suggest very much as to the usefulness of his life.
Hle was born in Gilford County, North Carolina, November 22, 1822, and was married to Miss Sarah A. Patton October 9,
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1850, at Pittsburg, Carroll County, Indiana. In early life he was deeply impressed with divine truth and led to give his heart to the Savior. He attended catechetical instruction under Rev. A. Reck and was received by him into membership of the church in Hendricks County, Indiana. He received private instruction in theology from Rev. Jacob Scherer, Jr., at Olney, Illinois. About the year 1850 he was licensed to preach the gospel and was ordained to the sacred office in October, 1852, at Ladoga, Indiana. His labors as a minister were largely of a missionary character, and was instrumental in organizing a number of congregations and building for them houses of worship. Mt. Zion church in Morgan County, Indiana, he organized September 15, 1850. Soon afterward he organized Bethel congregation, not far distant. In September, 1851, he gathered some Lutheran families in Howard County, Indiana, and organized what was known as Union church. He then became pastor of several congregations in Clinton County, Indiana, and remained with them about three years. For a short time he served the Mt. Pleasant church in Arcadia, and organized Bethel congregation at Cicero, Indiana, October 12, 1856. In June of the same year he organized St. Peter's church at Millersburg. A congregation was organized by him near Sharpsville, Indiana, June 23, 1857, and Salem church in Madison County January 9, 1859. Stony Creek congre- gation, in Hamilton County, he organized June 1, 1860, and Union church in Tipton County March 21, 1869. A number of these congregations he aided in their struggle to build their churches, and by his labors they were strengthened and re- enforced by the addition of new members. During the later period of his life he suffered great bodily aflfictions and retired
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REV. LUTHIER A. GOTWALD, D. D.
with his family to his home in Sharpsville, Indiana. But his active spirit could not rest, and he longed to see the church of his choice established in this village. St. Peter's congregation was here organized by him in 1890, and it was largely through his instrumentahty that their beautiful church edifice was built. He died April 14, 1892, having attained within a few months man's allotted period of three, score years and ten. His funeral sermon was preached by the President of Synod, Rev. C. II. Rockey, and his death was mourned by a large circle of friends.
REV. LUTHER A. GOTWALD, D. D.
As early as 1850 there were 60,000 German Lutherans in Pennsylvania, This surprisingly large number of the same faith and the same Fatherland populated the fertile valleys of the central and southeastern part of the state. Their colonies extend from the Susquehanna and its tributaries to the Dela- ware, and their skillful husbandry converted the whole tract into a garden.
To their sturdy characteristics and sterling merits as a people, can be traced the glorious heritage which our Lutheran church enjoyed in the early years of the present century, as well as her present supremacy in that grand old keystone state. By their fidelity to their mother church and by their conscien- tious care of their children, there was developed a strong, vig- orous and devoted membership, and a consecrated, Godly and powerful ministry. From this fine ancestral source sprang the subject of this sketch.
His ancestry on both his father's and mother's side was distinctly German. At an early day they settled in York Co.,
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P'a., and in their religious faith were ardent Lutherans. His father was Rev. Daniel Gotwald, who, in his day, was one of the most earnest, able and eloquent German Lutheran preach- ers of this country. Frequently, immense congregations gath- ered from far and near to hear him preach, and often the entire vast multitude was melted to tears, and many were, moved to ask what they must do to be saved. He was especi- ally faithful as a catechist of the young and by this time-hon- ored Lutheran enstom accomplished great good.
Soundly adhering to the Augsburg confession as the sym- bol of the Lutheran faith, he left an abiding and positive Christian and Lutheran impress wherever his ministry was prosecuted. v
The mother of the subject of this sketch was a woman of pre-eminent piety and of transcendent faith. Her intellectual endowments were of a high order, but her education was quite limited. She was a model Christian mother, devoting herself uobly to the training of her children for Christ and his church. She was an admirable disciplinarian. She ruled gently, yet firmly, quietly, yet effectively. Her daily habit, after the birth of her first child down to the close of her long life of eighty years, was to retire for prayer for God's. blessing upon herself and her family. After her husband's death a double duty was upon her. This she promptly assumed, and the spiritual and temporal care of her eight fatherless children was far from slight. Daily she conducted God's worship in the family, reading from her German Bible and offering prayer in the same rich tongue.
Luther Alexander Gotwald, the subject of this paper, was born January 31, 1833, and was the seventh child of eleven
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REV. LUTHER A. GOTWALD, D. D.
children, constituting the family. In infancy he was baptized by Rev. Prof. Dr. S. S. Schmucker, of Gettysburg, and in his sixteenth year he confirmed his baptismal vows as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church. Born of Godly parents, and reared under Christian discipline, he steadily and con- stantly matured his Christian life. He can, therefore, point to no special date of "conversion ": to no Pauline mid-day vision, nor to any great spiritual change either of heart or life, occurring at some one time. He believes himself to have been regenerated in baptism, and that that new life, then so gra- ciously begun, has been nurtured and matured by a Godly home and the means of grace in the church.
His father died in 1843, leaving his widow and eight children to survive him. Of these, Luther was fifth in age of the number then living, being but ten years old. The family thus bereaved was left destitute and dependent upon their own exertions. But God was faithful to his promises and always did he open up the way of relief, and supply the wants of the widow and the fatherless. The older children soon seenred positions in which they could contribute toward the family comfort. Luther, when about eleven years of age, was em- ployed as errand boy in a store. In a few years he was clerk with increased wages. Later he learned the printer's trade, and with the larger wages earned, not only kept himself, but nobly aided his mother in the family support.
At his very birth he had been consecrated by his Godly parents to the work of the Gospel ministry. Constantly was this high calling held up before him as his life work. One of the very last aets of his father, as he lay upon his dying bed, was to call Luther and his mother to his bedside, and, plaeing
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his attennated hand upon the fad's head, devote him to the holy work of preaching Christ, and then with his dying breath be charged the mother never to cease her efforts and prayers until she would see him in the high office to which he had thus been given. That dying act was never forgotten by the boy, and that holy consecration was not disregarded. From that moment he determined, with God's help, to assume his father's mantle, thus dropped in death, and to succeed him as Christ's ambassador among men.
That Godly wife and mother also did all in her power to secure the dying father's wish, and she lived to see, not only this son, but also two of her other sons and two grandsons and a son-in-law in the holy office. Thus richly did God answer His faithful servant's prayers. Luther, after various exper- iences, began his preparation for the ministry in 1852, as a student in the Preparatory Department of Wittenberg College, Springfield, O. Here he remained three years and a half, struggling with great poverty, and enduring mauy privations, until the close of the Sophomore year in the collegiate course. Providential reasons then determined him to complete his course at Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg. This he did, graduating in 1857, and taking one of the honors of his class. The next two years were spent in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, from which he went forth as a graduate in 1859. Soon after his graduation, and after being licensed by the Synod of West Pennsylvania, he became pastor of the Luth- eran church at Shippensburg, Pa., where he remained until 1863. His next pastoral field was at Lebanon, Pa., where, for satisfactory causes, he only spent two years. In 1865 he accepted a call to the First English Lutheran church at Day-
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REV. LUTHER A. GOTWALD, D. D.
ton, O. Here, at the end of four years, he was compelled to resign. His health was utterly broken, and a rest of a year was necessitated. In 1870 he accepted a call to the Lutheran church at Chambersburg, Pa., where he labored until 1874. In April, 1874, he became pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran church of York, Pa., where with constant and great success, he prose- cuted the work of the ministry for twelve years.
Under special providential guidance he was led at the close of the year 1885 to become pastor of a struggling mission enterprise in Springfield, O., an enterprise which is now the large and flourishing Second Lutheran church of that city. Under his ministry it soon rose into a large, self-supporting and most influential church.
This closed the record of his work in the active ministry, covering a period of thirty years. In all of these places Mr. Gotwald was eminently successful, being honored of God with a useful career. His ministry was characterized in cach pas- torate by large additions to the church and a most marked deepening of the spirituality of his congregations. He was ever noted as a pre-eminent pastor, with fine social talent, affable manner, warm heart and winning ways. As a pastor he was known as one whom every one loved and who had the rare power to make all feel that he was their true and especial friend. As a preacher Dr. Gotwald is well known, and in his pulpit efforts has few superiors.
Scholarly, thoughtful, spiritual, earnest, tender and con- vincing, his preaching is at once both interesting and edify- ing, and in his carlier and stronger years, it rose to gennine eloquence and swayed his hearers resistlessly.
As an experienced and successful pastor, Dr. Gotwald bad specially manifested the characteristics needed in one called to
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train others for the ministry, and hence, in 1888, when the chair of Practical Theology at Wittenberg Seminary, Spring- field, Ohio, became vacant, he was unanimously chosen by the Board to fill it. In this new position he has given entire satis- faction both to the students and the Board of Directors. His chair embraces Homileties, Church History, Pastoral Theology, Biblical Criticism, Church Polity, Apologetics and yet other important branches.
In all probability he will continue in this high work of training young men for the Gospel ministry, for which he is so aptly fitted both by gifts and experience, during the remain- der of his days.
Dr. Gotwald received his title of Doctor of Divinity in 1874, from his Alma Mater. He has been a prolific writer, and among same of his published writings are the following:
Sunday School Sermon, 1867; " Proposed Religious Amend- ment to our National Constitution," Lutheran Quarterly, I, 221; " Always Thankful," Thanksgiving Sermon, 1873; "'The Salvability of the Heathen, " Lutheran Quarterly, III, 411; Sermon at the funeral of Chas. A. Morris, York, Pennsylvania, 1874; Sermon at the funeral of Mrs. Sarah Hay, York, 1894; " The Development and Direction of Lay Work," (the third lecture on the Rice Foundation, Theological Seminary, Gettys- burg, 1874), Lutheran Quarterly, IV, 369; " Pastoral Letter to the Members of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church," York, Pennsylvania, 1875; " Our History and Our Success," Sermon, York, 1876; " The Divine Rule Concerning Giving, or the Christian Use of Property," sermon delivered before the York and Adams County Conference of the Synod of
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REV. LUTHER A. GOTWALD, D. D.
West Pennsylvania, 1877; Memorabilia concerning the Rev. Lucas Rauss, one of the early ministers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, including an account of his ancestors and descendants, 1878; "' The Apparition at Endor," Lutheran Quarterly, VIII, 321; " The Human Condition of a Good Prayer Meeting, " Lutheran Quarterly, IX. 47; "Church Orders, or the Necessity of a Right Call to the Ministry," Holman Lecture on Article XIV, Augsburg Confession, Lutheran Quarterly, IX, 85; "A Leaf from Home Missionary Life," 1881; " Luther Voices from Coburg to the Lutheran Ministry, " an Ordination Sermon before the Synod of West Pen-ylvania, 1853; "A Pastor's Address to His People, " a tract ; " The Reformation the Work of God," a sermon, York, 1883; "The Ministry Manifesting Divine Truth, a sermon before the West Pennsylvania Synod, York, 1883; "The College and the Nation," 1884; " Holy Memories -Rev. J. C. Deininger." 1883; .. Sunset at Noonday," funeral sermon, York, ISS5; .. Golden Shocks, or Ripened Grain for the Heavenly Garner," a funeral sermon, 1885; Inaugural Ad- dress; .. Practical Theology as an Educating Force in Minis- terial Training," Wittenberg Theological Seminary, 1889; "Unutilized Forces in our Churches, a Paper in Practical Theology," 1891; "Our Lutheran Church a Missionary Church," Lutheran Quarterly, 1892; " Lutheran Confession- alism in the General Synod, a Reply to the Charges of my Assailants," 1893; "The Resurrection of Christ," Lutheran Quarterly, 1894.
In his theological position, Dr. Gotwald may be classed among the Lutheran Conservatives; accepting heartily and fully the Augsburg Confession as the very best expression of
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Christian Doctrine that has ever been promulgated believing in the use of some Liturgical forms in public worship, and holding firmly to the historie faith and usages of the Lutheran church as, all in all, the purest and best that are taught and employed. Because of his rigid Lutheranism, charges during the past year ( 1893 ) were preferred against him by some hold- ing a less positive Lutheran position, and the effort was made to remove him from the chair of Theology which he holds. The Board of Directors, however, unanimously acquitted him of all charges preferred against him; and he now enjoys the confidence and esteem of the church more fully than ever.
Besides the active pastorates and the professor's chair, Dr. Gotwald has filled many positions of trust and responsibil- ity in the church. He was a Director of Wittenberg College from 1865 9; Trustee of his alma mater from 1873-85; Direc- tor of Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, 1871-80; Member of the Board of Church Extension since 1874; Member of the; Board of Home Missions from 1881; President of West Pem- sylvania Synod, 1873 6. He has been a frequent delegate to the General Synod and has always taken a leading part in her deliberations.
Dr. Gotwald was married to Mary E. King, of Spring- field, O., October 13, 1859. She has been to him a blessed helper in his entire ministerial career, and to her is indirectly due much of his ministerial success. Their family numbers nine children, seven sons and two daughters. The seventh son died in infancy. The fourth and sixth sons, Luther A. and William W., aged respectively fifteen and seventeen, died while prosecuting their collegiate studies for the ministry. Another, the second son, Rev. George D. Gotwald, died in
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REV. E. S. REES. REV. E. D. SMITHI. REV. C. W. MAGGART.
REV. A. Z. FRY BERGER. RL.V. B. D. HERROLD. REV. N. J. MEYERS.
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REV. JOHN LUTHER GUARD.
Kansas City, Mo., JJanuary 12, 1890, after a ministry of four and a half years. He was a man of superior Christian charac- ter and pre-eminent pastoral qualifications. His short ministry was remarkably useful and gave bright promise of still better things, when he was ent off from his labors at the early age of twenty-seven.
Still another son, Frederick G., is at present the pastor of the Fifth Lutheran Church in Springfield, O., where he is eminently useful.
All the children are members of the Lutheran Church, and are living Godly and Christian lives, as becomes their Christian baptism and training.
Dr. Gotwald is now ( 1894) sixty-two years old. His constitution is vigorous and healthy, and the prayer of the church is that many more years may be added to his already long and useful life.
REV. JOHN LUTHER GUARD.
In Newtown ( now Stephens City ), Frederick County, Vir- ginia, on the twentieth day of April, 1833, the subject of this sketch was born. Ilis father, Jacob Guard, was engaged in the transportation, by wagon, of merchandise from Winches- ter, Virginia, to the southern states. Being absent from home the greater part of the time the care and training of the family devolved upon the mother, Margaret Guard. She was a pions and godly woman and earnestly labored and prayed that she might bring up her children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The father died in March, 1848. John who was the youngest member of the family was now at the age of fifteen
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left to depend upon his own resources, and he decided to learn a trade. For two years he worked as an apprentice at the car- penter's beneh. During the winter of 1851 at a protracted meeting held in the Lutheran church, under the pastoral care of Rev. R. A. Fink, he was converted and united with the church. The desire which he had often had when a mere boy, that he might be a minister of the gospel, was now intensified and continued to grow stronger within him. He thought it over again and again, but it seemed like a mere reverie, for there was a great and apparently insuperable difficulty in the way. He knew the long years of training necessary in secur- ing a proper education, and had some idea of the expense in- volved. He had no means of his own, and there was no one that he knew from whom he could expect any material assist- ance. His desire seemed therefore only a vain ambition. But " man's extremity is God's opportunity," and it proved to be so in this young aspirant to the ministry of the word. Rev. S. W. Harkey, D. D., who, with others, was engaged in estab- fishing a college and theological seminary at Springfield, Illi- nois, was canvassing the churches of the General Synod for money and for students, and he came to Newtown. He soon learned of young Guard and of his desire to be a minister and at once songht an interview with him. The young man was persuaded, quite readily, for it was the opportunity earnestly sought, that he should go west and prepare for the ministry. On the 2nd day of October, 1853, he left home to join Rev. Harkey at Frederick City, Md., and a few days later started for Springfield, IH., at which place they arrived the latter part of the same month. The young man now found himself far from home among strangers without one dollar of money in his
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REV. JOHN LUTHER GUARD.
possession. It was a dark time in his experience, but the God in whom he trusted for guidance and protection did not forsake him. Borrowing a sufficient sum of money from Rev. Harkey, he with another young man, now Rev. John M. Lingle, rented a room over a store, bought a second-hand cooking stove, made some beaches, a table and a bunk for a bed, and thus equipped themselves to begin their new work. They also took three young men to board, Rev. George A. Bowers, a Mr. Cressam and Mr. Fox, charging them each $1.50 per week. At the end of the year the two had cleared enough to pay their own boarding. The second year young Guard entered the fresh- man class and continued in the regular classic course until the close of the junior year. Then he entered the theological department and took a two years course. Before leaving the seminary he received a call to become pastor of the charge at Dixon, Ill. Ile assumed pastoral control of the work and preached his first sermon on Sunday, July 18, 1858. Rev. C. B. Thummel, President of the Synod of Northern Illinois, gave him ad interim license. The Synod in its annual convention at. Mendota, September 20, 1858, ordained him a minister of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by the imposi- tion of hands according to the solemm rites of the Lutheran church. C. B. Thummel was President and George A. Bowers, the associate of his first year in college life, was now the secre- tary. September, 27, 1858, he was united in marriage to Miss Anna May Gabel, of Springfield, III., who proved a faithful companion in all his sacrifices and toils.
The Lutheran people at Dixon whom he was called to serve bad a church edifice in town, but the membership lived in the country. Only one member lived in the town of Dixon at
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that time. Three preaching points comprised his pastorate. Dixon, the brick school house east and the Uhl school house south. Between these points the membership of from two to three hundred was about equally divided. When he took charge of the work at Dixon there was also a small congrega- tion of German Lutherans worshiping in the same house. About a year later the Germans disbanded and all the mem- bers united with the English church. They gave as the reason for their action, that they understood Rev. Guard's preaching better than the German. He continued his labors in this pas- torate a little over two years. During that time he preached 190 sermons, received 28 new members, baptized 24 infants and 2 adults, married 7 couple and preached 14 funerals. The people were very kind to their pastor and on the whole co-operated with him in all church and christian work. But for reasons sufficient in his own mind, he deemed it his duty to seek a new field of labor. In June, 1861, he received and accepted a call to the Trivoli pastorate in Peoria county, Illi- nois. The first Sunday in July, 1861, he preached his first sermon. The charge was composed of two churches-one near Trivoli on Pennsylvania Ridge, and the other in a small vil- lage called Kickapoo, sixteen miles northeast. The parsonage was on the ridge. Neither of the churches was very strong numerically. It was just at the commencement of the war of the rebellion. The condition of the country occupied the minds of the people, and little else was thought of or talked about. But the new preacher went to work in earnest. in the fear of God, and the state of things changed somewhat. Ile was soon told, however, that his praying for the president and the soldiers was not agreeable to some of his congregation, that
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he was meddling in polities by so doing, but the preacher con- tinued to do his duty, both to his God and his country. He lived on the ridge six years, and then he moved to the other congregation of the pastorate, where he resided three years --- in all nine years in the Trivoli charge. At Kickapoo be built a new church edifice for the congregation. This was his first experience in that direction. The entire management of build- ing was thrown upon the pastor. He collected the money, drove the team that did most of the hauling, waited on the masons, and in fact made a full hand in the work during the erection of the building.
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