# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1851_S179
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 179 —

to give up their sons for the service of the church; but also how economically we must handle the resources we have, and how the relatively small number of workers for so large a field makes a wiser distribution of them all the more necessary, so that we do not fall into the awkward situation of leaving large, populous congregations unserved while sparing our strength for places that promise only slight results.

Pastor Brauer was specifically charged, by an address in the *Lutheraner*, to impress on all Christian parents the sacred duty of having their more gifted sons trained for the preaching office, and to encourage congregations to support poorer children for this purpose.

The Detroit Matter.

This matter, already discussed at last year's synodical assembly, was raised again by the two brothers, missionary Baierlein and Pastor Clöter. They explained that they had felt compelled by scruples of conscience to hear the party of Pastor Winkler in Detroit, and especially the man himself, and to inform themselves, from their own examination of the available records, of the true state of affairs. They had thereby become convinced that Pastor Winkler had indeed been wronged; that those people who have now joined our Synod and received a preacher from it in the person of Pastor Schaller had separated from their original pastor, Mr. Winkler, out of resistance to Christian order and discipline, had held congregational meetings behind his back, preached, and administered the sacraments before the matter was settled, and could accordingly rightly be called factionalists [*Rottirer*]. Our Synod, they said, had therefore committed a great sin in giving the malcontents a preacher who, moreover, had accepted those whom Pastor Winkler had banned and had allowed himself to be called by them at the same time. Against this practice — sending preachers into other congregations without proper investigation and without proper consultation with the ministerium concerned — the aforesaid brothers protest as unjust and godless, and implore the Synod to put away such abominations and to repent.

In particular they set out 5 points from which they seek to prove that last year's report by Professor Crämer on this matter was false and untrue.

Before these 5 points came up for examination, various letters were read aloud at the request of brothers Baierlein and Clöter; among others 3 letters from Pastor Winkler, which were meant to cast a different light on this whole affair than what the Synod had held up to now — although their content was such that it could only strengthen the Synod in its conviction that it had judged Pastor Winkler's conduct correctly from the start.

The first point of accusation charged Professor Crämer's report with falsehood at the place where he says that Pastor Winkler had not given a hearing to those members of his congregation who felt troubled in conscience over his priestly domination and his unlawful, high-handed imposition of the ban. Against this, missionary Baierlein and Pastor Clöter now gave the following account: 7 members from Pastor Winkler's congregation came to his house on March 4, 1850, with the request to be allowed to read something to him, the content of which was that they