# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1853_S238
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 238 —

— cleared out of the way, obstacles which, through its rapid growth and
through the vast extent of territory it occupies, have stood hindering in
the way of the free and unimpeded use of its powers. In order now to
reach the right goal, perhaps the simplest and shortest path would be
this: to look back and ask: "How did our Synod come into being? For
what purpose did it come together? What means has it chiefly chosen in
order to attain these purposes as well as possible?" If we find all this
tested and sound against the one right touchstone given to us, the divine
Word, then we have the premises we need, to which we may attach our
present deliberations and by which we may conduct them.

If we now ask how our Synod came into being, the time of its origin
has not yet receded so far into the past that we should not still carry the
memory of it vividly and freshly in our hearts. It lies in the spirit and
nature of Christianity itself that the rightly believing — and these are
surely also the truly believing — once they come to know one another, also
come together outwardly where possible in congregations, and that
congregations join together into larger bodies. What so inwardly belongs
together does not rest, once it meets in outward life — for it does indeed
seek and recognize itself — until a firm and intimate outward connection
also comes about. Where a healthy life of faith is found, there a mutual
seeking, finding, and joining together also shows itself. The Spirit that
dwells in believers and drives them is the Spirit of him who is love. How
could children of one Father, brothers of one household, members of one
body, vessels of one Spirit, live separated from one another wherever any
kind of connection could possibly be made?

We older brothers, who in earlier times had to work and struggle here
in isolation, without knowing of one another, know well how often, in our
loneliness, we sighed for a fellow minister, for a congregation, with whom
we might unite in faith; we still well remember with what unspeakable
joy, with what heartfelt thanks toward God, our hearts were filled at the
first sure news of like-minded brothers in this land.

Never shall I forget those blessed moments, and I thank God for them
every time I think of them, when the first issue of the "Lutheraner" came
into my hands, and I saw from it that not merely scattered individual
brothers, but whole congregations were to be found here who stood in the
true faith and on the ground of our confessions, with whom some kind of
outward connection was at least in prospect. The Church in this land had
opened her mouth and called her children together. — My beloved
brothers, we ought often to refresh such memories, so that the
unfailing blessing we now enjoy does not become to us something old and
customary and therefore lightly esteemed by us — a bad habit to which the
wretched human heart is only too prone. The brothers, then, who were
animated by the same spirit, who were rooted with heart and conscience
in the same ground of faith, the one infallible Word of God, and who
therefore moved, in their inward and outward life, on the same ground of
the church's confessions, could not do otherwise than seek one another
out also in outward life, and were soon most intimately united with one
another. The origin of the Synod was an entirely natural one, wrought by
the Spirit of God. It was not brought about by human desires, by
worldly interests, not