In preparing to write a chapter, albeit a short one, on the private and family life of the blessed Keyl, we cannot but remark that we feel here quite vividly what we have already said in the preliminary remarks to these sheets, namely: that we have had too little personal intercourse and contact with Keyl in life to be able to sketch an accurate picture of his life in detail. We did have enough contact with him to gain a general impression of him, and we are well able to express it; but for the rest we must follow the descriptions of his former confessors and other friends, as well as the notes in his diaries, which give us a deep insight into his private and family life. Although these notes are often only very brief, we can still get to know the man whose life and work we are describing here, and can thus gain a glimpse into the pious and faithful soul of Nathanael, which dwelt in the man by the grace of God. But since we can only give our impressions, we want to repeat for our own safekeeping what we said a few years ago in the biography of the blessed Pastor Böse, where we wrote: "To describe the life and work of a man is under all circumstances not as easy a matter as some might think. The greatest difficulty lies in correctly characterizing and judging the qualities of a person whose life one wishes to describe. Here one easily runs the risk of being condemned by some readers, who may have a judgment of the person in question that differs in some respects, either as a naysayer or as a whitewash, or at any rate as a distorter. Nor is it to be denied that one can very easily deviate from the factual truth when drawing up a portrait of a life without intending to do so; be it out of a preference for the person in question, or out of a lack of knowledge of human nature, or out of a lack of judgment and the like. Dr. Albert Bengel has already said that all life stories written by men are very dissimilar to those written by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. A truth that cannot be disputed." We ask you to take the above words to heart if our description of Keyl's private life does not correspond exactly in all respects with the judgment of this or that reader.
If we want to judge a person's life correctly, we must not overlook and disregard his origins, upbringing and youthful education; for these circumstances exert a great lasting influence on a person's whole life. It is fair to say that the circumstances in which a person grows up in his youth leave their mark on him. Even if this imprint is later sanctified by grace, it never completely disappears from him. We must also observe this here in our description. The blessed Keyl had enjoyed a fine education in his youth, as we have already noted in the first chapter, and this could still easily be seen in him in his later years. There was something aristocratic and measured in his manners, which a farmer who did not know him well might at first mistake for pride. But he was the simplest, plainest and most humble Christian man there could be. The farmers of Frohna, as many of them as are still alive from that time, who were his confessors for eighteen years and were in close contact with him, still bear witness to this today. They had come to know him through and through, for in the first eighteen years of his ministry he had much contact with his parishioners and visited them in their homes, but later, for easily explainable reasons, he had to refrain from doing so; for in Milwaukee and Baltimore his official business took up much of his time, so that he had to limit his house calls to visits to the sick and similar necessary visits. It is also possible that his literary work later also kept him from frequent contact with his parishioners and gave him the air of a parlor scholar. He divided his time during the day precisely into certain tasks. When he sat at his study table, he did not like to be disturbed. If someone stopped him by talking unnecessarily, he would look at the clock that always hung above his desk and shake hands with the words: "Go with God! Farewell and come back another time." Incidentally, however, he was not a self-contained man.
Keyl was a man of sanguine-choleric temperament, but his sanguine temperament was predominant. This temperament is usually associated with a good memory, eloquence, a good disposition, natural soft-heartedness and similar dispositions and abilities. On the other hand, such a temperament also has a lot of heat, a quick temper and other vices in its wake. In particular, people with a sanguine temperament are humorous, witty, lively, cheerful, of good humor, jocular, sociable, entertaining, can easily overcome obstacles, bear adversities, are not burdened with many worries, do not easily die of heartache, as they say, and so on. A sanguine is the opposite of a melancholic: if the latter cannot easily get over it when a hen dies, the former speaks when his wheat is spoiled: Well, what does not grow this year will grow next year. But it does not follow from this that the latter is a stronger Christian than the former; we are only speaking here of the natural dispositions of a man, from which we can draw a conclusion as to his temperament.
Anyone who ever associated with the blessed Keyl knows that his memory was filled with a large store of anecdotes, stories and joking and serious incidents, and that it was easy for him to keep a company in the most cheerful mood for hours without overstepping the bounds of Christianity in the slightest. He was full of effervescent wit. It was particularly delightful to listen to him when he would take off the rationalist professors he had heard in his youth at university and imitate them in voice, gesture and expression on the catheder when they chewed the dry heather of their home-baked intellect, i.e. their vulgar rationalism, in front of their students. One was involuntarily reminded of the words of the "Wandsbecker Boten" (Matthias Claudius), where he says: "I have also been to Unverstädten, and have also studied. No, I didn't study, but I have been to Unverstädten and know all about it. I became acquainted with some students by chance, and they showed me the whole university and took me everywhere, even into the college. There the students all sat next to each other on benches, like in a church, and at the window there was a chair on which a professor or something like that sat and talked about this and that, and that's what they called lecturing. When I was in there, the one sitting on the chair was a professor, and he had a big curly paruque on his head, and the students said that his erudition was much greater and curlier, and that he was as much of a free spirit as anyone in France or England. That might be true, for it came out of his mouth as if it had come out of a cider hose; and he could demonstrate like the wind. When he did something, he would just start a little bit and before you knew it, it was demonstrated. For example, he demonstrated that a student was a student and not a rhinoceros. For, he said, 'a student is either a student or a rhinoceros; but now a student is not a rhinoceros, for otherwise a rhinoceros must also be a student; but a rhinoceros is not a student; therefore a student is a student. You'd think that would go without saying, but our one doesn't know any better. He said that the thing that a student is not a rhinoceros, but a student, is a mainstay of the whole of philosophy, and that the masters could not brace their backs firmly enough to prevent it from toppling over."
What a good sense of humor and wit Keyl possessed, we want to pick out and share just a few examples from his life. - In the early days of his preaching ministry in Frohna, Perry County, Mo., he also had a preaching place in Wittenberg, six miles from Frohna, where he often used to preach on Sunday afternoons in the small store of a man named Böhlau. Because he was now so rich that he could call a horse, a black horse (for he considered only a black color worthy of a preacher), his property, which at that time of the first primitive states here was almost considered something princely; so of course he always made his preaching trips on horseback, in the most cheerful mood and mood, as a sanguine, as Keyl was, can not be imagined otherwise. When his first-born son, Stephanus by name, had grown up to the point where he could ride along, his father sometimes took him on his horse when he rode to his preaching place and taught him to rhyme:
"Now we ride to Böhlau's store,
He puts almonds and raisins in front of us."
Whether the man really had almonds and raisins for sale, we cannot say; but we must doubt it, because at that time almonds and raisins were still sour grapes for the poor settlers, and they hung too high. But enough, little Stephen had to learn the rhyme, regardless of whether he got almonds and raisins or not. He was also satisfied if he was only allowed to sit proudly on horseback with his father, although he would not have spurned the almonds and raisins as a bonus if luck had given them to him. The pious and cheerful father, however, was delighted to be able to give his first-born such innocent pleasure.
A pharmacist once came to Keyl, who was astonished at the number of books in Keyl's library and could not understand what a preacher would do with so many books. In response to his comment, Keyl said to him: "As it is with my library, so it is with your pharmacy; when I see all the jars and glasses, boxes and tins, I can't understand what you do with them and what they are good for." The pharmacist replied: "Yes, you see, dear pastor, there are many ailments and diseases in the world, and science has invented special remedies for each disease, with which a fully equipped pharmacy must be equipped; hence the many jars and tins, all of which have their useful purpose." Keyl then said to the pharmacist: "Look, I'll explain the usefulness of my large library in the same way. For a preacher is a spiritual physician, and his library is his spiritual pharmacy. But just as there are many bodily sufferings and diseases, so there are also many sufferings and damages to the soul, which arise from the same cause as the bodily ones, namely from sin, but for which God has also provided remedies in the same way as for the bodily ones. And this is precisely why a preacher uses his library, so that he can draw wisdom from it in order to be able to advise and help in all cases that occur, which are often of a very peculiar nature and which often bring him very special patients."
On another occasion, a baker came to Keyl in the course of a conversation and asked whether he also belonged to a church, as he still wanted to be a Christian. The baker replied that he had once belonged to a church, but had been shamefully betrayed by the preacher of the church, and since then he no longer trusted any preacher: that was why he no longer belonged to any church. Keyl replied and said: "What happened to you with the preachers is what happened to me with the bakers. I once sent to a baker and asked for fresh bread, but when the messenger came back with it, I found that the baker had given him bread as hard as a bone, and since then I have lost all faith in bakers." The baker replied: "But, Pastor, not all bakers are like that!" Keyl replied: "So, sir, not all preachers are like the one who deceived you. You therefore have no reason to stay away from a Christian congregation for the reason given, and you will not be able to apologize to God for the evil preacher one day."
Although the blessed Keyl also had his dear cross in his life, he was spared much physical suffering and serious illness. He had a strong physical constitution and especially a healthy nervous system, and therefore also a persevering capacity for work. For although a preacher's work does not involve the muscles of the body but rather the nerves, his work is all the more strenuous and exhausting for this very reason. A wood-chopper or a rough smith may think that his work is much more strenuous than that of a preacher who works with the mind; and this is true in so far as the muscles are involved: and yet, as doctors of sound judgment maintain, two hours' strenuous study is more trying and exhausting than a whole day's wielding the axe or the blacksmith's hammer, because the nerves are little engaged. Therefore, if any worker needs a strong physical constitution and a healthy nervous system, then especially a preacher, who has to work primarily with the spirit. Blessed Keyl was endowed with these powers, and he did not let them lie idle, but consumed them in the service of the Church. Just as a light consumes itself by shining for others, so he also sacrificed his bodily and spiritual powers in the service of the Kingdom of God.
However, he did not remain without all physical ailments, but also had a disease that reminded him of his mortality. For many years he was afflicted with a stomach cramp, which often attacked him suddenly and violently. This also happened on Sundays; then he was unable to preach, which probably explains the severity of it; for he did not allow a minor ailment to keep him away from his dear church. According to a remark in a letter from 1853, he was never completely spared a stomach cramp on any Sunday. It says: "Here everything goes its usual course, even with regard to my usual suffering, of which I feel more or less almost every Sunday."
Later, he also developed an abdominal ailment, which was probably the result of much exertion and especially his much preaching. It was strange, however, that as a result he was freed from the stomach cramp with which he had been plagued for so long. He mentions this in passing in a letter to a brother minister, where he writes: "The damage I suffered has not only been good for my soul, but also for my body, in that since then my previous ailment, namely the stomach cramp, and all the troublesome things connected with it, have almost completely disappeared. The damage itself does not cause me any pain. Well, I will sing:
"Nevertheless, I will always stick by you,
When I dislike everything equally,
No gloom presses within me
The hope that has been grasped,
That when everything breaks and falls.
Yet your hand holds me.'"
The blessed Keyl was a very soulful man, which is why all the events in his parish and in his family moved him very deeply. His diaries, which he kept very carefully for over thirty years, provide much evidence of this, and one can gain a deep insight into his pious heart. His mind is particularly moved on the evening of a day when he has had sad experiences in his congregation, or when he has negotiated uselessly with an impenitent person; then pleading sighs rise up from his soul to God. On the other hand, on the evening of Sundays and feast days, when he has preached the precious Word of God to a crowded church with a joyful opening of his mouth, his soul is full of praise and thanksgiving to God for the grace he has received. He also shows himself to us in the events in his family. Let us take just a few examples from his diaries.
When he had taken his first-born son, his little Stephanus, to school, he wrote on the evening of the same day: "Today, with many tears and prayers, I took my Stephanus to school with Mr. Cantor Winter in Altenburg. May God bless him and let him learn to recognize and love his Saviour more and more." When he had buried his second-born child, he wrote: "Today I buried my dear Anna Maria, 19 weeks and 6 days old, who had fallen asleep. The poor child had to suffer a lot in the few days of her life. She was my second child on earth and is now my first in heaven. God grant a blessed afterlife! I spoke about the words of Jesus: 'Do not think so, for the little girl is not dead but asleep. But I could not finish my speech without tears and melancholy." On his birthday in 1840, he wrote: "Today, by God's mercy, I entered my 37th year. My dear wife wished me this morning 'a gracious year of the Lord'. May God fulfill this brief but weighty wish, and grant me above all the justifying grace that all my former sins are buried forever; the sanctifying grace that I may begin a new life and especially that I may faithfully use the knowledge and experience I have gained in previous years; and the chastening grace that I may abandon myself entirely to the discipline of the Holy Spirit and conscientiously follow his guidance." On this day he then also makes a very delightful meditation on Joshua the high priest, Zech. 3:3-8. It is easy to appreciate his thoughts when one considers that it was just at the time when God had opened his eyes to his aberrations in Stephanism.
Our blessed Keyl also had to taste the sweet cross of marriage. As the father of a household, he had to stand eight times in his life at the grave of a dear family member, as death took away two wives and six children. He was married three times and eighteen children were born to him, twelve of whom survived their father.
He was married for the first time on November 15, 1836, at the age of thirty-three and in the seventh year of his preaching ministry. His wife was Ernestine Amalia Walther, born on July 4, 1815, a daughter from the parsonage of Langenchursdorf, near Waldenburg in Saxony, and sister of the former pastor Otto Hermann Walther in St. Louis and Dr. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther, professor of theology at Concordia Seminary and pastor of the four parish districts in St. Louis. Keyl had four children with his first wife, two sons and two daughters, but the youngest three died soon after their birth and only the first-born survived his father. This is the Rev. Stephanus Keyl, who had been working for a number of years in the service of the Missouri Synod as an emigrant missionary in New York and as such was known far and wide here and in Germany. He had previously been pastor for several years at the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Philadelphia, which belonged to the Missouri Synod. He was born in Niederfrohna, Saxony, on June 27, 1838, and came to this country with his parents as a child of six months. This lovely marriage, in which two hearts were intimately united in the grace and love of the Lord Jesus, was, however, all too soon dissolved, to the great sorrow of our dear Keyl, when death tore his dear, noble wife from his side. This was a bitter loss for him, for she was not only a beautiful and well-educated lady, but also a sincerely humble disciple of JEsu, proven through severe inner trials, purified by outward sufferings and tribulations, gentle in her dealings, compassionate and sympathetic towards the suffering, content in all situations, patient in her heavy cross, grateful to God and man even for the slightest kindness, and truly a mirror of noble pastor's wives. This is how she was described to us only a short time ago by old, tried and tested Christians in Frohna who had known her since her marriage and had had much contact with her. Her husband himself also testifies to her heartfelt piety when he says in the first issue of his "Lutherophilus" (page 6) with regard to his study of Luther: "I noticed with joyful astonishment how a beloved patient (he means his dear wife) was especially comforted by Luther's words in her unspeakable pain, namely his comforting instruction on how to counter and control the pusillanimity and other temptations of the devil in physical weakness; and when I read to her his sermon on preparation for death, in which he speaks as one who has already passed through bodily death to eternal life, she put aside a physical refreshment offered to her with a beaming look and exclaimed: 'O Luther, you make one really want to die! After a few weeks, God took her into the heavenly Canaan; but he comforted and strengthened me during my separation from her, especially through Luther's words full of experience, and thus strengthened me anew in my resolve to study and use him more diligently from then on. The salutary fruit of righteousness from this affliction, in which God had exercised me, showed itself in the increased gift of comforting others, and some of my listeners wished me luck that I had had such an experience for my salvation and theirs."
The ailment of Keyl's first wife, from which she also died, consisted of the so-called white knee tumor, which is only cured in very rare cases. A very young doctor who was treating her at the time told her that he knew of only one possibly successful means of curing her ailment, namely burning with red-hot iron; but her husband flatly refused to give his consent to such operations. As her suffering worsened and the pain became unbearable, it was decided to take her to St. Louis to seek, if not a cure, at least relief from her pain. *) (*) Her brother, Prof. Walther, came down to the end of St. Louis to take her up with him). Lying on a stretcher, she was carried the seven miles from Frohna to Wittenberg, where a steamboat picked her up and took her to St. Louis. When she passed through Altenburg on her way here, the blessed Pastor Löber accompanied her for some distance and comforted her from God's word. When he finally said goodbye to her, she declared most firmly that she would not see her homeland again, but that the Lord Jesus would soon deliver his poor handmaid from all evil and introduce her to her eternal, blessed home. In this hope she was not put to shame. She lived in St. Louis for only a short time, although no means were left untried to prolong her precious life. Her dissolution took place in the apartment of her brother, the aforementioned Prof. Walther, on May 23, 1842, after she had given birth to a baby boy the day before (on her husband's birthday), who was baptized Christian Ernst. On May 24, her disembodied body was laid to rest with God's word and prayer in the cemetery of the Lutheran congregation in St. Louis, and on May 30, her child in pain, Christian Ernst, was carried to his final resting place and laid in his coffin on his mother's coffin in consecrated ground.
So Keyl now stood alone in the world. The ornament of his house and the crown of his head, he laments in his diary, had been taken from him and his home seemed desolate and empty. But he also comforted himself with God's word, as is fitting for Christians, who should not mourn their dead, like the heathen and unbelievers, who have no hope of eternal life. He had the joyful certainty that his "unforgettable little girl", as he calls her in his diaries, "was torn from all fear, that her soul was freed from death and her eye from tears, that she walked before the Lord in the land of the living; that she sang a new song with the elect and praised the Lord God in the midst of the angels. Therefore, although he had lost this jewel in time, it was nevertheless well kept in heaven, and one day he would find it again and never lose it again. But this tribulation must serve him for the best. Therefore let his soul praise the Lord."
In 1843 Keyl entered into marriage for the second time with Katharina Popp, from Grebsreuthin, in Franconia, Kingdom of Bavaria, from where she, born on February 9, 1825, had come to this country with her siblings not long before and had settled not far from Frohna. This marriage was blessed by the Honorable Pastor Löber in Altenburg. She bore him two children, a son and a daughter. But after two years and eight months he had to bury her too. In September 1845, she was taken ill with a fierce fever, and on September 30 she passed away after giving birth to a baby boy the day before (like Keyl's first wife), who was baptized Benjamin. However, the baby only outlived his mother by a few hours. The double funeral took place on October 2. They rest in the cemetery of the Lutheran congregation in Frohna in a coffin, little Benjamin in his mother's arms. The only daughter conceived in this marriage, Anna Dorothea, survived her father. She entered into marriage with Andreas Heisser in Baltimore in 1863, moved with him soon after to Frohna, Perry County, Mo., where she died in 1879, leaving behind her husband and 6 children as a pious Christian, after giving birth to a little daughter a few hours before her death.
For the third time our dear Keyl made a marriage alliance in 1846 with the maiden Sophia Amalia Vogel, from Ebersbach, in the Saxon Upper Lusatia, where she was born on August 8, 1827. This union was also blessed by the Honorable Pastor Löber in Altenburg, in the church at Frohna. He lived in this marriage, which was richly blessed with children, for over 26 years until his death in 1872; however, she was not spared the cross and suffering of many a wife and children. Of the twelve children born in this marriage, two preceded their father into eternity. The first, Helene Wilhelmine, born in Baltimore on October 28, 1855, died on July 12, 1856; the other, Bertha Susanna, born in Baltimore on December 18, 1861, died at the age of 5 from burns. The other ten children born of this marriage and still living are as follows:
1. Maria, born in Frohna, Perry County, Missouri, June 10, 1847 (on the day her father received a vocation to Milwaukee and Freistadt, Wisconsin). On November 5, 1867, she entered into marriage with Pastor F. T. Körner in Williamsburgh, New York, which marriage was blessed by Pastor Stürken in Baltimore, as the father was unable to do so due to deep emotion.
2. Martha Constantia, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 20, 1848. She entered into marriage in the. year 1874 with Mr. Jakob Theobald in Peru, Ind. where they still reside.
3. Karoline Emilie, born in Baltimore February 20, 1851, married in 1874 to Rev. P. F. Germann, pastor in Fort Smith, Ark.
4. Hermann Wilhelm, twin brother of the aforementioned, an upholsterer by trade, resident in Peru, Ind., and already married.
5 Agnes Magdalena, born in Baltimore on February 27, 1853, entered into marriage with Pastor C. A. Germann in Peru, Indiana, in 1873.
6 Daniel Ernst, born August 14, 1857 in Baltimore. He graduated from the School Teachers' Seminary in Addison, III. and after passing his examinations followed the call of the congregation in Altenburg to a newly founded school in Wittenberg, where he served for three years with blessed success, after which he was appointed by the Zion congregation in New Orleans, La. to the first class of their parochial school, over which he has presided for two years. He is at present unmarried, but is already engaged to a maiden in St. Louis, whom he intends to take home soon.
7 Emma Amalia, born September 10, 1859 in Baltimore. She currently still lives with her mother in Monroe.
8 Clara, born in Baltimore on September 3, 1864, also still lives with her mother.
9 Gerhard, born September 4, 1866 in Baltimore. He is currently working in a store and is learning bookkeeping, but lives with his mother.
10. Juliana, born December 27, 1868 in Baltimore, who also still lives with her mother in Monroe.
Finally, we would like to point out that if we refrain entirely from making any detailed comments about the still living members of Blessed Keyl's family, no one will see any shortcoming in this; on the contrary, it would be considered indiscreet, reckless and even reckless, and rightly so, if we were to speak in detail about any living person, whether in praise or censure. But that is what we want to do and say in this place: We wish the whole family, even those members of it who are unknown to us in person, God's grace and blessing for time and eternity. May the dear children keep the memory of their pious and venerable father in blessing and honor among themselves and their descendants to many generations to come.