# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 9 —

...shine into the eyes of others — he himself, in that he does not use it
faithfully, only seems to have it; and from him, what he has but does
not have as he ought to have it, and therefore only thinks he has, will
be taken away entirely, so that in the end nothing at all remains to the
poor man. He is given over to doing what is worthless; his outward
circumstances are so shaped and altered that ever more hindrances to
godliness arise from them for him, and through becoming entangled in
them he grows ever more unfit to be a vessel unto honor, sanctified as
God's own possession and useful to the Lord of the house of His Church —
that is, prepared for every good work. His uninstructed heart, which
shut itself against the purity of the Word, is blinded through some
other, false gospel or invented fable, in malice and deceit, and is, as
it were, seared and made insensible to the means of grace, as though
by a branding iron. Even if such people go on forever learning, they
can nevertheless never come to the knowledge of the truth, because they
are people of corrupted minds and are found to be liars in hypocrisy.
The lampstand is thrust from its place, and in the abandoned spot there
arise schools of Satan, or a new dominion of idolatry. What is the end
of it? Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown
into the fire. The lord of the useless servant will come on a day he
does not expect, and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in
pieces and give him his wages in the outermost darkness, full of
weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nothing remains to him of what he
possessed on this earth; even his memory is rooted out from it; nothing
remains to him but his sin — this alone is his own; everything else was
only entrusted goods which the man thought he possessed, but he was
merely a steward set over it; nothing remains to him but his sin, and
this follows him beyond the grave; it accompanies him before God's
judgment, into hell, to the place of torment and its never-quenched
flame. To stand idle in the marketplace of life as regards the Lord's
vineyard, or to forsake one's first love, is treason against what is
holy and shipwreck as concerns future blessedness. — Lord Jesus, we ask
Thee, abide with us, for evening is coming on and the day of this
present age has declined, so that, when the darkness turns and the
everlasting dawn rises and shines, we may find ourselves with Thee, and
our joy no one may take from us. Amen.

In the afternoon the sessions now began, eighteen in all, which ran
from half past eight until half past eleven in the morning and from
half past two until half past five in the afternoon. Each of them was
opened with a liturgical worship service that included a reading from
the Acts of the Apostles according to the Altenburg Bible.

After the first session had been opened with the hymn "Come, Holy
Spirit, Lord God" and a heartfelt prayer by the Präses [president], the
standing synod members were, according to established practice, first
called by name from the previous year's rolls in the district synodical
reports, the absent members noted, and