# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S50
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 50 —

...to counteract, which impression must be made on the heathen partly by
the unchristian conduct of many nominal Christians who deal with the
Indians, partly by the false holiness of erring church bodies already
established there;

2. the direction of the whole undertaking, best made possible by this
means, and the refuge for the missionaries thereby secured;

3. the great advantages of such Indian schools when, situated away from
the Indians' dwelling places, they are built in the midst of, and under the
influence of, Christian congregational life;

4. the necessity of winning the Indians over more quickly to agriculture
and permanent settlements by this path, which, given this country's
politics, is almost the only possible and safe one;

5. the significance of Oregon for the spread of the church beyond the
Pacific Ocean.

Should it be objected that there is just now a war with the Indians in
Oregon, that war may be expected not to last long; with its hardships and
terrors it might, by God's wonderful counsel, even prepare the way for the
entrance of the sweet gospel, and would in any case give time to take the
preliminary steps with all the more mature forethought, so that — should
our means by then allow it — we could go to work all the more quickly
and vigorously once the war is over.

A further obligation, to enter into connection with Lutheran mission
institutions, was met to the extent that the Dresden Committee was
greeted fraternally by letter and asked whether it could spare us two
missionaries in case of need. This request was for the present declined,
for the following reasons:

1. it was still too short a time since they had sent their student, Mr.
Baierlein, to the mission station at Frankenmuth in Michigan, and it could
therefore not yet be justified to the friends and patrons of the institution
to send missionaries among the Indians of America again so soon;

2. the Tranquebar mission claims all their resources;

3. for the present they have no such students suited for a post of that
kind.

A closer oral discussion, especially of the first reason, would show that
the synod cannot rely on help from this quarter, and must therefore be
most zealously intent on ways and means by which capable missionaries
can be trained up at Fort Wayne — as indeed two students for the mission
to the heathen are already there.

Pursuant to a special charge from the synod, the wish of the Nuremberg
Central Society to join with us in common work in the field of missions
was answered in such a way that, along with a friendly greeting, the
modest question was attached whether such cooperation should take place
solely and exclusively on the basis of the one confession — in which case
hearty joy and a brotherly welcome were expressed. The result was that the
secretary was requested, in a private letter, to retract that resolution as an
insulting one. He likewise replied privately that the reasons given could
not move him to do so at all. Before his answer had even arrived, a private
letter to the missionary Mr. Baierlein went so far as to threaten to
denounce us to our Dresden friends for lovelessness and unbrotherliness,
and to admonish us through them...