In a recent sermon in Elberfeld on Joshua 10:12-13, where 
Joshua bids the sun stand still, Krummacher advanced the inter- 
esting thesis that pious Christians, the Elect, should not suppose 
from this passage that Joshua was here accommodating himself to 
the views of the people, but must believe that the earth stands still 
and the sun moves round it. In defence of this view he showed that it 
is expressed throughout the Bible. The fool’s cap which the world 
will give them for that, they, the Elect, should cheerfully put in 
their pockets with the many others they have already re- 
ceived.— We should be happy to receive a refutation of this sad 
anecdote, which comes to us from a reliable source. 

Telegraph für Deutschland No. 84, time 

May 1839 

FROM ELBERFELD 

For some time there have been loud and bitter complaints about 
the deplorable power of scepticism; here and there one looked 
gloomily at the toppled edifice of the old faith, anxiously waiting 
for the clouds covering the sky of the future to break. With a 
similar feeling of melancholy I laid down the Lieder eines 
heimgegangenen Freundes; they are the songs of a dead man, a 
genuine Wuppertal Christian, recalling the happy time when one 
could still cherish a childlike belief in a doctrine whose contradic- 
tions can now be counted on the fingers, when one burned with 
pious zeal against religious liberalism, a zeal at which people now 
smile or blush— The very place of printing shows that these 
verses must not be judged by ordinary standards, that no brilliant 
thoughts, no unfettered soaring of a free spirit are to be found 
here; indeed, it would be unfair to expect anything but a product 
of pietism. The only proper standard that can be applied to these 
poems is provided by earlier Wuppertal literature, about which I 
have already vented my irritation at length, to allow one of its 
products for once to be judged from a different standpoint. And 
here it is undeniable that this book reveals progress. The poems, 
which appear to come from a layman, although not an uneducated 
one, are in their thought at least on the level of those of the 
preachers Doring and Pol; at times even a faint hint of romanti- 
cism, as far as that can go together with the Calvinistic doctrine, is 
unmistakable. As regards form, they are undeniably the best that 
Wuppertal has produced so far; new or unusual rhymes are often 

? See this volume, pp. 22-23.— Ed. 

From Elberfeld 31 

used not without skill; the author even rises to the distich or the 
free ode, forms which are actually too elevated for him. Krum- 
macher’s* influence is unmistakable; his phrases and metaphors 
are used everywhere. But when the poet sings: 

Pilgrim: Though lamb of Jesus’ flock you be, 
No ornament of His I see 
On Thee, O lamb so still. 

Little Lamb: Oppressed, but only to arise, 
The lamb shall go to Paradise. 
Be silent, Pilgrim, be a lamb; 
Meek and low through gate may go, 
Be silent, pray, and be a lamb, 

this is no imitation, but Krummacher himself! Nevertheless one 
can find passages in these poems which are truly moving by their 
genuineness of feeling; but, alas, one can never forget that this 
feeling is for the most part morbid! And yet, even here one can 
see how fortifying and comforting a religion which has truly 
become a matter of the heart is, even in its saddest extremes. 
Dear reader, forgive me for presenting you with a book which 
can be of infinitely little interest to you; you were not born in 
Wuppertal, perchance you have never stood on its hills and seen 
the two towns” at your feet. But you too have a homeland and 
perhaps return to it with the same love as I, however ordinary it 
looks, once you have vented your anger at its perversities.