Sauer Grapes -- Mistreating Aliens
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"Sauer Grapes -- Mistreating Aliens" by Keith Wagner
Sauer Grapes -- Mistreating Aliens
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 82
Christopher Sauer (1695-1758) came to America in 1724, an immigrant with dreams. Not long after he arrived in Germantown, Pennsylvania he wrote back to his friends in Germany about his harrowing voyage. He then made it clear the dangers were worth it, because of the wondrous opportunities available in the New World. Speaking about the freedom available to people hemmed in by the prejudices and class consciousness in Europe, he wrote:
Now we are here in a well-blessed land...The spirit of this world promises her admirers a great fortune weekly. When a day laborer or artisan arrives here without debts, he can then buy property in two or three years of one hundred acres of fields, and forests, with wheat, trees, and other gardens, as well as a soundly built stone house. This is more independent than a nobleman's estate in Germany."
It was hard for him to believe, and perhaps to get his readers to believe, the opportunities available to an immigrant in America.
I live in a house where I have a large room...a kitchen, attic, garden, cellar, stable, a cow and two pigs, as well as a large orchard with thirty-six apple trees, many peaches and cherries. When the cow and the pig are fattened from the peaches and apples, I hope to have fifty measures of apples left to shake down. I also have free split firewood on the farm."
Sauer took full advantage of the opportunities available to him. He had been a tailor in Germany, but his genius as an inventor and his skill with mechanical things led to his teaching himself twenty-six trades, including pharmacist, apothecary, botanist, surgeon, joiner, clockmaker, lathe operator, glazier, lampblack manufacturer, and printer. He made all his printing tools and ink, taught himself the skills of bookbinding and editing and even ran his own paper mill.
Things got so good, he wrote, "My wife is getting very fat." That was seen as a sign of prosperity in those days.
Sauer was a Christian believer, but he did not join any one denomination, instead serving all by printing hymnals, books and pamphlets for everyone. He considered his greatest achievement the printing of the first Bible in a European language in America. This German language Bible was a great success and led to a second and a third edition.
Sauer, who began with almost nothing, was able to support many charitable causes. He also sought justice for slaves, Native Americans, and immigrants who followed after him.
In 1755 Sauer wrote from Germantown, Pennsylvania to the colony’s legislature protesting the treatment of German immigrants by English crews and Pennsylvania merchants. Though they had been told by the English that they were to bring chests on board ship when they emigrated, filled with much needed fruit and vegetables and other provisions for the journey, these chests were “freely opened and plundered by the sailors and others, and what is left will be searched in the stores by the merchants’ boys and their friends and acquaintances.” When those who did not starve on the trip sought redress in Pennsylvania nothing was done, as the authorities insisted on proof that was impossible to provide. Justice, Sauer lamented, “must be deferred to the decision of the great, great, long, long day, where certainly an impartial judgment will be seen..."
That same desire for justice is found in Psalm 82, where the Psalmist describes a day in the heavenly court, where the gods or princes of this world are called to account for their behavior before God.
(Want to know more? For Christopher Sauer's letter back home see "Two Early Letters from Germantown" by Donald F. Durnbaugh, in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 74, (April 1960), 219-233. For the story of Sauer's Bible and his work to protect the rights of immigrants see Abraham Harley Cassel: Historical Writings, compiled by Frank Ramirez, Christopher Marlowe and Associates, 2012).
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 10, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Sauer Grapes -- Mistreating Aliens" by Keith Wagner
Sauer Grapes -- Mistreating Aliens
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 82
Christopher Sauer (1695-1758) came to America in 1724, an immigrant with dreams. Not long after he arrived in Germantown, Pennsylvania he wrote back to his friends in Germany about his harrowing voyage. He then made it clear the dangers were worth it, because of the wondrous opportunities available in the New World. Speaking about the freedom available to people hemmed in by the prejudices and class consciousness in Europe, he wrote:
Now we are here in a well-blessed land...The spirit of this world promises her admirers a great fortune weekly. When a day laborer or artisan arrives here without debts, he can then buy property in two or three years of one hundred acres of fields, and forests, with wheat, trees, and other gardens, as well as a soundly built stone house. This is more independent than a nobleman's estate in Germany."
It was hard for him to believe, and perhaps to get his readers to believe, the opportunities available to an immigrant in America.
I live in a house where I have a large room...a kitchen, attic, garden, cellar, stable, a cow and two pigs, as well as a large orchard with thirty-six apple trees, many peaches and cherries. When the cow and the pig are fattened from the peaches and apples, I hope to have fifty measures of apples left to shake down. I also have free split firewood on the farm."
Sauer took full advantage of the opportunities available to him. He had been a tailor in Germany, but his genius as an inventor and his skill with mechanical things led to his teaching himself twenty-six trades, including pharmacist, apothecary, botanist, surgeon, joiner, clockmaker, lathe operator, glazier, lampblack manufacturer, and printer. He made all his printing tools and ink, taught himself the skills of bookbinding and editing and even ran his own paper mill.
Things got so good, he wrote, "My wife is getting very fat." That was seen as a sign of prosperity in those days.
Sauer was a Christian believer, but he did not join any one denomination, instead serving all by printing hymnals, books and pamphlets for everyone. He considered his greatest achievement the printing of the first Bible in a European language in America. This German language Bible was a great success and led to a second and a third edition.
Sauer, who began with almost nothing, was able to support many charitable causes. He also sought justice for slaves, Native Americans, and immigrants who followed after him.
In 1755 Sauer wrote from Germantown, Pennsylvania to the colony’s legislature protesting the treatment of German immigrants by English crews and Pennsylvania merchants. Though they had been told by the English that they were to bring chests on board ship when they emigrated, filled with much needed fruit and vegetables and other provisions for the journey, these chests were “freely opened and plundered by the sailors and others, and what is left will be searched in the stores by the merchants’ boys and their friends and acquaintances.” When those who did not starve on the trip sought redress in Pennsylvania nothing was done, as the authorities insisted on proof that was impossible to provide. Justice, Sauer lamented, “must be deferred to the decision of the great, great, long, long day, where certainly an impartial judgment will be seen..."
That same desire for justice is found in Psalm 82, where the Psalmist describes a day in the heavenly court, where the gods or princes of this world are called to account for their behavior before God.
(Want to know more? For Christopher Sauer's letter back home see "Two Early Letters from Germantown" by Donald F. Durnbaugh, in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 74, (April 1960), 219-233. For the story of Sauer's Bible and his work to protect the rights of immigrants see Abraham Harley Cassel: Historical Writings, compiled by Frank Ramirez, Christopher Marlowe and Associates, 2012).
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 10, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
