# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1850_S146
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 146 —

thought it well to take along, and set out for Detroit, having previously
announced my coming in writing. We did not find Pastor Winkler at
home, and heard, to our regret, that he had not even yet been informed of
our arrival here. We therefore waited for his return, then went to him and
told him the purpose of our being here, whereupon I identified myself, by
showing the aforementioned letter of April 5, as the committee member sent
to the people by our Synod at their request. Although, because we had
come so late, he at first gave little hope that a committee could be brought
about soon, and in doing so displayed an indifference — hardly becoming to
a faithful pastor — toward this matter troubling the conscience of most of
his parishioners, he nevertheless soon had to be convinced that the delay
so far was not our fault, and finally agreed to summon his part of the
committee to Detroit the following week, likewise in the person of two
members, so that we could the more easily agree on the third committee
member to be appointed by us. By Pastor Winkler's own reckoning, an
answer could arrive in 4–5 days, and his part could arrive together with the
letter. To wait for this, we went meanwhile to Monroe. When we returned,
Pastor Winkler was again at his rural congregation, but had left us a letter
in which he wanted to persuade us to go home again with our business
unfinished, even before the answer of his part had come in. We considered
ourselves bound, however, to wait for it. Pastor Winkler was nearly angry
about this, went to the post office in the afternoon, and brought back word
that a letter had arrived, agreeing for the time being, but declining, for
now, on account of pressing official business, the Pentecost week which I
had proposed as a second date. Nothing then remained for us but to leave
for now, though first to set yet another date, namely Thursday, June 13.
Yet before this time had elapsed, Pastor Winkler traveled to Buffalo to see
Pastor Grabau, and on his return sought to persuade the congregation to
join the Buffalo Synod, while at the same time reviling and slandering us in
the harshest terms. The complainants, however, insisted that their case be
decided by an impartial tribunal, that for conscience's sake they could not
join Buffalo, but had good confidence in our Synod. Meanwhile, on June
10, I received a letter from Pastor Winkler in which he first informed me
that a rumor was going around in Detroit that I wished to found a new,
that is, a rival congregation from members of his congregation, and that he
felt obliged to warn me against this; he then said, however, that I need not
come any more regarding the committee matter in question, for, as things
now stood, no such committee could or would come about. Two days later,
however, I received at the same time two letters from the people, in which
they urgently asked me to come to them quickly, since Winkler wanted, by
all sorts of intrigues, to prevent their case from being handled before an
impartial tribunal, by trying to bring them under the Buffalo Synod, which
they recognized as false. So I went there. But when, on the morning after
my arrival, Saturday, June 15, I went with three of the people to Pastor
Winkler, we were received very badly there and dismissed curtly with the
statement that he could no longer recognize me as an orthodox committee
member, since his part, which were the Buffalo men, would have nothing to
do with us, because we were involved in false doctrine