The emigration of the Saxon Lutherans to America, under Stephen's leadership, in which our blessed Keyl also took part, is known to have taken place in 1838. It had been secretly planned and prepared long beforehand, but only a few of Stephan's faithful had been aware of it earlier. As early as the 1920s, Stephan had spoken to Professor Benjamin Kurz from Gettysburg, when he was traveling in Germany and also visited Stephan, about the possibility of having to emigrate soon for conscience sake, and he later exchanged letters with him on this matter. According to Keyl, in 1830 Stephan had informed people close to him of his emigration plans and tried to convince them that emigration might soon be necessary. He had primarily pointed out to them the sad ecclesiastical conditions in Germany, in which the believing preachers and laymen were often in the greatest distress of conscience; in particular, however, he had told them that the unbelieving church government was about to abolish the oath on the church confessions and thus abolish the last remnants of Lutheranism, indeed of all Christianity. Thus it could soon come about that no one in Germany could be saved. With such and similar descriptions, which were essentially quite correct, although the conclusions drawn from them were exaggerated, he could easily win over the Christians, who felt the pressure of conscience in the national church only too much, for his emigration plans.
Around Pentecost of 1836, Keyl also recounts, a special meeting was held at Stephan's event in Dresden, at which the conditions of the Lutheran regional church at the time were discussed in detail and found to be so hopeless that the decision was finally taken: The move to another country, where the church enjoyed full religious freedom, had become an urgent necessity. Initially Stephen had had his eyes set on Australia, but at that meeting it was decided, on his advice, to consider America as the destination for emigration; and finally the state of Missouri was chosen as the most suitable for a larger emigration society. Thus all the necessary arrangements for emigration were quietly made, and the secret strings were spun out everywhere where intimates lived; it only needed a jolt for the whole company to be ready to travel. They were only waiting, as they said, for a sign from God to set off. So when Stephan was arrested by the police in the late fall of 1838 and soon afterwards suspended from office and a lawsuit was brought against him, he shortly afterwards sent word to all his associates:
The hour for departure had struck; the time to flee from Babylon had come; whoever wanted to save his soul should prepare to leave. And lo! soon hundreds were ready to follow Stephen's call. Of course, the people thought that Stephen's well-deserved suspension was a sign of his martyrdom because, despite the serious suspicions against him and the frequent police accusations, he had not yet been convicted of a single evil deed. We must not lose sight of this fact if we do not want to do the Saxon emigrants an injustice and falsify the historical truth, as has often been done by malicious people, both orally and in writing. For the sake of Stephen's evil deeds, which only later became apparent, they have sought to stamp the whole society with immorality and to disgrace it in the eyes of the world.
Among those who were immediately ready to follow Stephen's call to leave for a foreign land was our blessed Keyl with 109 souls, some of whom were from his parish of Niederfrohna and some from the surrounding area, but the latter had been attending his sermon for some time. The whole company, however, consisted of just over 700 souls. Among them were six preachers, eight candidates for the ministry, a school teacher, three candidates for the school board, two doctors, a medical student, a doctor of law, a lawyer, two painters and several former civil servants and merchants; the majority, however, consisted of craftsmen and farmers. Before the start of the journey, a so-called emigration order had been drawn up, which all the independent male persons involved had to sign. In order to show that wise and Christian principles and plans had indeed been drawn up and drafted by the company, we shall quote the essentials of that regulation. It says there:
§Confession of Faith: The undersigned confess with sincere hearts the pure Lutheran faith as contained in the Word of God in the Old and New Testaments and as presented and known in the symbolic writings of the Lutheran Church.
§ 2. emigration, its cause, purpose and goal: After careful consideration, the undersigned see the human impossibility of keeping and professing this faith pure and unadulterated in their present homeland and of propagating it to their descendants. They are therefore urged by their conscience to emigrate and to seek a country where this Lutheran faith is not endangered and where they can therefore serve God undisturbed in the order of grace revealed and established by Him, and enjoy undisturbed the means of grace which God has ordained for the salvation of all men, in their completeness and purity, and preserve them for themselves and their descendants. These means of grace include above all: the ministry of reconciliation (preaching?) in its full extent and with undiminished freedom; pure and free worship; complete and pure preaching of the divine word; complete and pure sacraments; pastoral care and care of souls without disturbance or hindrance. Such a country as they seek is the United States of North America, where, as nowhere else in the world, perfect ecclesiastical and civil liberty prevails, and strong and effectual protection of the same against foreign countries takes place.
§ 3. ecclesiastical and civil order: The undersigned swear to submit with Christian sincerity and willingness to the ecclesiastical, civil and school regulations to be established and in particular to the church discipline to be established.
§ 4. the place of settlement in the United States of North America shall be chosen in one of the western states, Missouri, Illinois or Indiana.
§ 5 Itinerary: Therefore, the city of St. Louis in the Missouri State, which lies at the center of all these states and is their main trading center, should be the next destination of the voyage. The embarkation point in Europe is to be Hamburg or Bremen, the disembarkation point New Orleans, from where St. Louis is to be reached by riverboat on the Mississippi.
§ 6 Purchase of land: From St. Louis, a committee of all emigrants shall purchase a strip of contiguous land and, after deducting what must remain for the church, school and community, individual pieces shall be given to each individual according to his needs. These lands shall together make up the village or town area. Outside the village, everyone is free to buy as much land as they wish.
§ 7. assumption of all church and municipal burdens for 5 years.
§ 8 Mutual support (no community of property).
§ 9. credit fund: An advance or credit fund shall be established to temporarily cover the necessary expenses for church, school and community needs, to support impecunious emigrants through advances, and to purchase the above-mentioned land. The deposits depend on everyone's free will.
§ 10. in all transactions, promises and assurances, Christian simplicity, honesty and truthfulness must prevail, and therefore all unavoidable formalities and verbosity should be avoided.
§ 11 The undersigned declare that each of them has been given a completely free choice to go along or to stay at home.
When the Saxon Lutherans prepared to emigrate, they fared like Noah when he prepared the ark: they had to let themselves be mocked by the children of the world. But even well-intentioned and pious people shook their heads in disbelief at their plan. Some did not trust Pastor Stephan; others were offended by the way in which the emigration was being carried out; and still others did not think it was time to leave the country's church, which had fallen into such terrible disrepair, and to seek a spiritual refuge in another country where they could serve God without the obstacles of the state church. Among the latter was, for example, the dear Dr. Rudelbach. Our Keyl had previously been in fraternal contact with him and had belonged to a conference with him, from which he (Keyl) later renounced for reasons of conscience. When the long-planned emigration was to become a fact, Rudelbach turned to Keyl in well-meant, heartfelt letters and tried to draw him away from Stephan's community, warning him against leaving the regional church and emigrating, which he declared to be a sin. Although he could not deny the sad state of affairs in the regional church, he still considered it premature to leave and emigrate. And what did this dear man later do himself? To save his conscience, he also resigned his office in 1845. In his printed farewell sermon, he explains what moved him to resign his office as superintendent, consistorial councillor and examiner within the Saxon regional church, to leave Saxony and return to Denmark. He writes: "Not only <p. 53> are outrageous abuses tolerated in our church here (what Protestant teacher's heart would not have bled when he saw such a lack of discipline before his eyes, which unrestrainedly violated even the Word and the sacraments!); but public measures are proposed and have already been partially implemented in order to open our church to an anti-Christian party (the German Catholics or Rongians). My hand would have withered if I had signed the slightest letter of such measures, which will unfold with lightning speed, and I would have been called upon by my position to carry them out. I was bound by a sacred, inviolable oath to protect the confession of our church with word and deed, with life and limb, with property and blood. There was only one protest left to me; the protest is - my resignation from office."
The journey across the ocean was accomplished by the emigration company in five ships rented for the purpose, the first of which left Bremerhafen on November 3 and the last on November 18, 1838. But only four of these ships reached America's shores, the fifth is completely lost. The name of the ship on which Keyl came over was "Johann Georg". It left the German port on November 3 and arrived safely in the port of New Orleans on January 5, 1839. According to Stephen's orders, Keyl had to perform all the official duties on this ship, just as if he were the appointed pastor of the ship's company. On February 9, he and the other passengers arrived in St. Louis, Mo. after a happy voyage on the Mississippi.
It was here that the entire emigration community came together again. The prevailing mood among them, however, was by no means uplifted, but depressed and dejected, although no one was able to give himself an answer as to the real cause. Many felt that there was a spell among them, but the real cause was still hidden from them; their eyes were still closed, so that they did not yet perceive the imminent collapse of their castles in the air. Although many were already suspicious of Stephen, none dared to reveal their hearts to the others. Just consider the following incident, which our blessed Keyl himself recounted: While traveling on the Mississippi, a young man privately revealed his heart to Pastor Keyl, saying that he feared Pastor Stephan was living in secret sins of the flesh. What did our dear Keyl do? In great indignation, as if he had heard a blasphemy, he struck the young man in the face. Then he showed him what a grave sin it was to allow such a horrible thought to arise in his heart against such a holy man, who had endured so much for the sake of Christ, etc.
However, Stephen's imperiousness, love of pomp, extravagance and frivolous use of other people's property had become increasingly apparent during the voyage. During the voyage he had persuaded his ship's company to elect him bishop. He testified that he did not want to be bishop in America, but only its counselor. For the time being, he said, it was only a matter of having someone at the helm when he arrived in America who would take the reins with a strong hand and keep the company in check; it was therefore advisable that he should be invested with the episcopal dignity for the time being. During the journey from New Orleans to St. Louis, he had a document drawn up which all members of the Society had to sign and in which they had to pledge their hearts and lives to "His Reverence" (?), their God-given (?) bishop. Unfortunately, our blessed Keyl eagerly helped to carry out these and other hierarchical plans of Stephen. He confesses this himself with the following words:
"Not only did I personally vote for Stephen's election as bishop in the firm conviction that this election would lead to great salvation for the Church of God, indeed that it was absolutely necessary for it; but by my urgent ideas I also induced my traveling companions to agree to this election. But - what was even more annoying - I also persuaded them to take the blasphemous and outrageous oath demanded by Stephen, in which they not only pledged unconditional obedience to Stephen in all ecclesiastical and communal matters, not only pledged such unlimited trust that they themselves would seriously guard against all suspicious thoughts arising against Stephen, but also pledged themselves to live, suffer and die by the episcopal constitution initiated by Stephen."
The whole company stayed in St. Louis for a while until they had found a place to settle that suited Stephen's wishes. During this time, Keyl administered the preaching ministry among the emigrants there and received his salary for this. However, he dared not preach a sermon there that he had not first presented to "His Reverence" for approval, who then also knew how to masterfully use our dear Keyl's foolishness for his ever deeper subjugation and humiliation. Keyl also took no offense at the use of a public church prayer in which "Bishop" Stephan was commemorated in a blasphemous manner according to a prescribed formula. Of course, all this was done in ignorance; but one can see from this in what enchantment the whole society, with few exceptions, preachers and laymen, was caught. It should not be forgotten, however, that all these sins and follies had their deepest foundation in a false, hierarchical doctrine of the Church and of the ministry, or in a false Romanizing theory of ministry.
In April 1839, a large number of the emigrants, including our blessed Keyl, moved to Perry County, in southeast Missouri, a little over a hundred miles downriver from St. Louis, where, directly on the Mississippi River, several thousand acres of land had been purchased for a settlement and the purchase price paid from the emigrants' credit fund. Stephan also arrived with them at the settlement to dictate and direct the course of events there.
But his reign was not to last long; his secret sins were discovered and he was removed from the settlement as a result. Things were revealed that made it necessary, for the sake of God's glory and the salvation of many souls, to remove him from the settlement as quickly as possible.
But do not think that this meant that Stephanism or the Stephanist spirit had already been removed from the settlement - oh, no! It still took serious battles that lasted for years and days before the dark, unevangelical spirit was subdued and before the Stephanist ideas were abandoned. As long as the false, unevangelical doctrine was not out of the hearts, the practice remained a legal one. A doctrinal battle therefore first had to break out among the emigrants and be fought through, so that the root from which all previous aberrations had grown among them could be cut off; only then could a new one be plowed and the sowing among the hedges could stop. This doctrinal dispute was not long in coming, but our dear Keyl was initially still on the wrong side. So he writes about it:
"Stephen's death by no means removed Stephanism from our midst. I, too, still held on to most Stephanist ideas in continued blindness. The protestation written by three members of our Society therefore also failed to achieve its purpose in my case; indeed, I openly opposed it, as it could have shed light on many important points even then, which unfortunately only became clear to me later. I realize how shameful it is for me that I, who should have been able to give light to others myself, first had to receive the light from others, and that I unfortunately resisted it for too long. I must be all the more ashamed of my long blindness, since I recognize more and more clearly how God, out of unfathomable mercy and for the salvation of us all, first began through the aforementioned Protestation to put a stop to the building of a new Babylonian tower that was unconsciously continuing among us, to tear down the un-Lutheran foundation of it together with what was built on it, and to bring the old, proven foundation to light again."
The fact that our dear Keyl held on to some Stephanist ideas for a long time, and even defended them, had, as has already been mentioned, its main reason in the false doctrine of the preaching office; but also in the fact that some highly respected people in the settlement, who had been close to Stephan and had been his advisors, adopted a highly unwise, indeed unjust procedure by trying to lay all the blame for their failed hopes on the preachers and otherwise causing great confusion among the Christians. The behavior of these people was not suitable to tear our dear Keyl out of his bias and lead him to a better understanding. But the Lord, who allows the sincere to succeed, finally helped him out of all the confusion and led him to the right light so that he could rejoice again with a joyful mouth.
After Stephen's removal from the settlement, the people soon realized that a communal economy, as it had existed among them until then, could no longer continue. So a lottery was held and the land purchased from the credit fund was distributed. The entire society (with the exception of those who had settled in St. Louis) was now divided into several communities, and Pastor Keyl founded the community of Frohna with some of those who had emigrated with him from the Muldenthal. They called their settlement Frohna in memory of their old homeland, which they had not yet been able to forget, even though they had left it for the sake of their faith. This name could also have been interpreted as a prophecy of their hard lot, which they initially encountered here; for "Frohna" is reminiscent of "Frönen", or hard labor: but their hard work was not hard labor for them, but a pleasure; for they rejoiced that they had happily escaped the hard labor of the German state church and now lived in a land where they enjoyed complete freedom of faith and conscience and could serve God in the old pious way of the fathers.
Their number was only small, almost all young, as yet unmarried people and, as has been said, their beginning was poor in every respect. It is therefore easy to see that our dear Keyl's external circumstances could not have been brilliant at first. When the lands purchased by the company were distributed, he was given a piece of land on which, fortunately, there was still a small habitable house in which he and his small family could find shelter from wind and weather. In the early days, church services also had to be held here. Before each service, a pulpit and altar were built in the narrow room and everything was prepared in a very ecclesiastical and solemn manner, so that people were in a very reverent mood when they entered. The pulpit and altar were made of three artfully assembled boxes, one of which formed the pedestal, the other the parapet of the pulpit and the third the altar, all of which was decorated with an ecclesiastically decent covering. Under such modest circumstances, there could of course be little talk of a pastor's salary at the beginning; for some members of the congregation often lacked even the bare necessities, and money was an almost completely unknown commodity here at that time.
Fortunately, our Keyl still had some of his father's inheritance left over from Germany, so that he and his family were protected from real hardship. He had lost a large part of his inherited property when he emigrated; he had paid a sum of 5360 thalers into the credit fund, but in return he only received back the value of about K600, consisting of a piece of land; from this it is clear enough that he did not seek his own when he emigrated, still less did he find it.
As poor as things were for the pastor and congregation in Frohna in the early days, they were not discouraged and despondent, but were soon intent on constructing and completing a building equipped for holding church services. Of course, there was no money for this, and there were no wealthier sister congregations at the time that could have been approached for help (as has almost become the fashion nowadays). So they had to rely entirely on their own hands to build their church, and in addition they had to literally work every day for their daily bread for "today". But the Lord helped them from one day to the next, and their desire and love for the work they were about to do did not let them tire. Soon a little church built of hewn blocks was finished, and oh, how happy the dear people were when they could gather in it to praise God. Of course, it could easily have been called "the little church of Christ's crib in Frohna", for it was devoid of all external decoration: it had no ceiling above and no floor below; the seats were made of hewn blocks, which were supposed to represent planks and rested on rammed posts so that one could sit down safely on them. In short, you could see that the whole thing had been built by poverty.
But that's why they preferred the place all the more. They had the real main ornament of a place of worship in their little church - the dear Word of God, which Pastor Keyl preached to them abundantly and effusively, with evidence of the Spirit and power, on Sundays, feast days and weekdays; and the people listened to it diligently, indeed so diligently that the surrounding Americans prophesied that they would not soon become impoverished (for they were already poor), but would starve to death. But their prophecy turned out to be wrong. It is true that most of the old immigrants have already - as we may hope - died a blessed death, but not because they starved to death, but because death also kept the old covenant with them: "You must die." But their children and descendants still live there, and their number has grown large, and, thank God! They still listen diligently to God's Word, as evidenced by the beautiful and spacious church built in recent years (the third since the first beginnings); and they do not starve, but still have something left for Christ, who is poor in his members. Those Americans, however, who proclaimed certain death by starvation to the dear people of Frohna, have almost all disappeared from the surrounding area.
However, Keyl's sphere of influence in Frohna was very small and limited, and the congregation grew very little in his time because there was no material available. At that time, the western states of America were still very sparsely populated. This was particularly the case in the south-eastern part of Missouri, where the Saxon immigrants had settled. The area was also not very suitable for attracting new immigrants, because there was little good farmland to be found there; therefore there was little opportunity to carry out missionary work, although the Saxon preachers had no lack of desire and love for it. Keyl's zeal for inner mission can be clearly seen from the fact that he preached about thirty miles from Frohna, in the small town of Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area, to several German families living there; and the interest with which he worked the small mission field can be seen from the fact that he described his work there in great detail in a long essay. And that this work of his did not remain without fruit in the Lord is evidenced today by a number of Lutheran congregations that were later established there.
Keyl lived in loving harmony with his congregation in Frohna. The majority of them had already been in spiritual contact with him in Germany, so they were all the more trusting towards him here, which strengthened the inner and outer unity in the congregation. From the outside, the congregation was little disturbed. The surrounding Americans were mostly still Christian-minded people, Presbyterians, from whom they were not challenged because of their faith, and they remained almost completely unbothered by the other sects in this country. There is hardly a corner of this vast country that has been so neglected by the proselytizing enthusiasts as Perry County, Missouri, and especially the Saxon settlement. They did try to make some loot here and there, but they soon realized that they could not fish in the murky waters here, and that their efforts and work would be lost. For since, from the very beginning, not only was the gospel of Jesus Christ generally preached here by truly believing preachers with evidence of the Spirit and power, but also the difference in doctrine was diligently pursued, the sectarian emissaries were thus given a barrier which they were unable to break through; they could not resist the spirit that spoke from the Lutheran Christians, who were clearly and firmly grounded in doctrine.
Thus our Keyl was spared serious battles during his ministry in Frohna - after the doctrinal disputes among the immigrants themselves had been resolved happily and to the glory of God. He therefore used the time all the more to establish himself ever more deeply and firmly in the truth through diligent study and to build his congregation on its most holy faith. Here he began by studying Luther's writings, which we will discuss in more detail in chapter 8 of our story.
His ministry in the parish has had a profound effect. This writer is well able to make a correct judgment about Keyl's effectiveness in Frohna, since he previously served the congregation as a branch for 13 years. He must confess that he still clearly perceived the traces of Keyl's blessed activity after many years; indeed, even today the congregation has not denied the imprint which its first founder left on it.
If you think back to the time when Keyl was working in Frohna, and consider how small and poor the congregation was, you might well think that the pastor and congregation were not at all concerned about the building of the kingdom of God, because they had enough to do with their own congregational budget. In our time there are some congregations that are not nearly as poor as that congregation was, but which generally care little about the building of the kingdom of God and use poverty as their excuse. But Pastor Keyl and his congregation did not think and act like this; they were also immediately active in the expansion of the kingdom of God. For when Concordia College was founded in 1839 in Altenburg, two miles from Frohna, and the education of seven boys began, they also took the most active part. The poor congregation supported it as best they could, and Pastor Keyl was active for a long time by giving lessons. And when in 1847, at the instigation of the Saxon preachers, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states came into being and held its first sessions in Chicago in April of the same year, Pastor Keyl was also among the fifteen preachers and his congregation among the ten congregations that made up the entire body of the Synod at that time.
It can be seen from this that the Stephanist spirit, which wanted to live only for itself and close itself off monastically, had disappeared from the Saxon congregations, and that they had correctly grasped their Christian vocation, namely, "to proclaim the virtues of him who had called them from darkness to his marvelous light". It cannot be denied that as long as Stephen's spirit dominated and ruled them, they pursued a different goal and strove to remain separate and to form a church for themselves alone; but God led them by his grace to a better understanding, so that they now also considered that they should be the salt of the earth.
We now come to the end of this chapter. After nine years of activity in Frohna, our blessed Keyl received in June of the year 1847 a vocation from the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Freistadt and from the Evangelical Lutheran Trinity congregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There he was offered the prospect of a much larger and more important field of work than he had in Frohna, and this circumstance must have been one of the main reasons for accepting the job he received. - In that place his rich gifts and knowledge could probably also be utilized more and better for the advancement of the kingdom of God in general than was the case here in Perry County; and this had to be a second main reason for accepting the unsought vocation he had received. - Here, in Frohna, he was little challenged from the outside, by unbelievers and false believers, and he had to work more merely with the trowel, without always being armed for battle with the sword in the other hand; in Wisconsin, however, God wanted to place him on a battlefield where he not only had to teach, but also always had to defend himself, not only to work with the trowel, but also to wield the sword; and this had to be a third main reason for accepting the profession he had received. And because learned and pious men, who knew the circumstances in those places, advised him to follow the call; and because his conscience told him that he must go; and finally because his congregation could not invalidate these reasons by more important reasons to the contrary, and thus could not release his conscience from the obligation to follow the new call: so it could no longer be doubtful to him for a moment that he had to recognize in the received vocation a divine call, which he had to follow as his Lord's servant.
His congregation in Frohna, which honored and esteemed him highly, and which loved him as a father, did not like to see him leave their midst; and it was very difficult for our dear Keyl himself to have to part from his dear people, with whom, according to the majority, he had already been closely connected for nine years in Germany, and with with whom he had just as long shared joy and sorrow, good and bad days, comfort and adversity, and who were as loyal to him as only righteous Christians can be to their pastor in sincere love. However, as difficult as the outward separation was for both parties, they recognized on both sides that they had to make this sacrifice because the Lord demanded it of them. An old member of the Frohna congregation recently said to us: "We let Pastor Keyl go with joy; not because we wanted him to leave, but out of gratitude to God, who had let him stay with us for so long and who had given us so many spiritual blessings through him. We were also pleased that he now had a larger and more respectable position, which he well deserved and which we gladly granted him."
On the 16th Sunday after Trinity 1847, Keyl preached his farewell sermon in Frohna, and he left that same week. The following information about this was published in the 4th year of the "Lutheraner", No. 3, from the Frohna congregation:
"Our former pastor, much beloved in Christ Jesus, Pastor Keyl, Reverend, accepted the call of the Evangelical Lutheran congregations in Milwaukee and Freistadt, and preached his last sermon here on the 16th Sunday after Trinity. This took place before a large congregation, as many came from the neighboring congregations who wanted to hear the word of God once again from his mouth, so that our small church building was too small to hold the crowd. The morning sermon, on the raising of the young man at Nain, went all the deeper to our hearts in our situation, as we were already deeply moved by the departure of our pastor; but it was also very comforting for us, because we learned from it how our Lord Christ still speaks to us in all need: 'Weep not.' Holy Communion was then distributed and after the service a congregational meeting was held, where he bid a deeply moved farewell to everyone. In the afternoon sermon, he continued with the explanation of the first book of Moses, which he had interpreted in the weekly services. In this sermon - on the 35th chapter - he spoke, among other things, about how the holy patriarch Jacob always had one cross after another, but also alternated with the consolation of the divine word. At the end he gave us several important exhortations that we should faithfully preserve the richly received Word of God, and explained that he did not preach a formal farewell sermon because he believed that the melancholy would take hold of him and us in such a way that weeping would be a disturbing obstacle to teaching and listening. ..
Well, our thanks follow us into the distance,
O dear teacher, after you,
Since undaunted and so gladly
Her mouth spoke to our hearts
Of that which is our bliss
I was only able to promote during this time.
Because we can't do it now,
To reward your effort and diligence,
We wish you God's blessing
In your new sphere of activity
That God may multiply little heaps far away
And destroy Satan's kingdom and power.
Now, you churches, say with joy
Welcome your soul shepherd,
Who will surely lead you to green pastures
of the Word of God;
Yes, happy are you praised by us,
That God may direct you to this man.
May God grant you all good fortune,
That we may one day be in bliss,
The shepherd with the flocks, singing
From eternity to eternity
The LORD has considered everything well
And everything, everything done right. Amen."