# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S667
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS 667

oples of Europe. Also huge numbers of religious books, such
400,000 copies of Schild des Glaubens (a German edition of

: The German Hilfswerk is at present diminishing its activities
as far as actual relief assistance in Europe is concerned, and is
entering its help more upon the plight of the 12 million refugees
iving in the Western Zone of Occupation of Germany.

Christian Literature

Ten thousand copies of Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik, a hun-
ired thousand evangelistic pamphlets, quantities of European
junday school literature, prayer books, pamphlets, 200,000 tracts,
sibles, devotional booklets, catechisms, make an immense stack
boxes to be sent across the ocean. But just such quantities were
shipped to Europe. From 1947 to March, 1950, approximately
1,309 pounds of Christian literature was shipped to Europe by
Emergency Planning Council.

As previously noted, much of the Council’s Christian literature
was printed by the German Hilfswerk with cellulose bought in
Sweden. In December, 1947, a grant of $20,356 was made for this
urpose, followed by an additional grant of $50,000. Every ounce of
this paper. was utilized to bring God’s Word and the message of
salvation to not only physically, but also spiritually sick peoples.
The timely financial assistance of the Emergency Planning Council
enabled many individuals and groups to produce significant Chris-
‘tian literature in a number of cases of very urgent need. So for
example — through the Council’s help Rev. Wantula was able
to print 1,000 Epistle and Gospel sermon books in the Polish
. language; $7,000 permitted the Evangeliumsverein of the Finnish
; Lutheran Church to print a Finnish version of Pieper’s abridged
' Dogmatik; the facilities of the Lutheraner Verlag could send
copies of the German Lutheraner into 22,000 homes every month
’ for the past three years; ministers’ libraries which were bombed
out or destroyed were replenished with worth-while theological
. books; thousands of children who had never seen a catechism were
;..introduced to “Luther’s doctrine pure”; thousands of Christian
. families whose belongings were gone counted again among their
possessions a complete Bible or select portions of God’s Word.

. It has always been. the policy of the Emergency Planning
Council, wherever possible, to bring God’s Word into the hearts
of nations and peoples who because of their physical environment
are dejected and downtrodden. For years the Nazi restrictions
curtailed or terminated the activities of Bible societies. To counter-