Resting on the shores of Lake Michigan, Cedarburg, Wisconsin has been defined by its natural resources and its pioneering settlers since its earliest days. Native Americans once hunted wildlife drawn to the pristine springs in the region, and in the 1840s, "Old Lutheran" immigrants built a thriving town on the same spot, eventually grafting a dynamic Teutonic culture by constructing hundreds of magnificent stone buildings in a unique German craftsman style. The striking landscape of Cedarburg today, so carefully preserved, is a testament to the unyielding spirit of the men and women who fashioned this unique place out of the wilderness.

After emigrating from Germany to Michigan at age seven, Johannes Strieter (1829-1920) served as a confessional Lutheran pastor in Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana amid almost unbelievable hardships. Though not a well-known person himself, his life's path intersected with that of numerous distinguished persons--August Cramer, Friedrich Wyneken, J. C. W. Lindemann, C. F. W. Walther, and John C. Pritzlaff, just to name a handful. Through his recollections, we also encounter firsthand the Ojibwa; the Civil War; the establishment and founding of roads, cities, churches, and schools; and we travel by sea, lake, river, canal, railroad, horseback, buggy, stagecoach, and on foot. We accompany him as he nearly kills his sister; is spared in a terrible accident; falls in love; navigates difficult pastoral situations and decisions; gets drafted into the Union Army; buries some of his children; ministers to the troubled, misguided, sick, and dying; and finally retires to Michigan on account of deafness. Translated afresh from Strieter's original manuscript and presented with twelve appendices to supplement his autobiography, Sacred Storytelling is a treasure trove of adventure, perspective, entertainment, courage, and conviction.

Kant casts a long shadow over contemporary debates in political philosophy. The Kantian roots of ideas of dignity, autonomy, equality and freedom under law are widely acknowledged. Kant’s own developments of those ideas in his explicitly political writings are taken up less frequently. The aim of this volume is to help bring those contributions out of the shadows. The articles and essays explore various dimensions of Kant’s complex and powerful picture of the relation between morality and politics that Kant develops.