# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S29
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 29 —

A similar letter, dated April 5 of this year, from a member of one of our
congregations in Baltimore, Prof. Georg A. Witte, submits to the General
Synod a request for a treatise that would "clearly set forth and plainly
demonstrate, by means of Holy Scripture and the testimony of the ancient
Church Fathers," the doctrine of the ministry [Amt] in the Church, with
particular regard to the system of the Episcopal Church. May the
Venerable Synod, to which I hereby hand over the letter in question along
with a related letter addressed to me personally as president, express
itself on the request contained therein.

Our Western District Synod declared the following at its sessions in
Addison in the year 1870: "On account of its inestimable worth, the
Examen Concilii Tridentini [Examination of the Council of Trent] (that
is, the examination and refutation of the decrees of the papist Council
of Trent) by Martin Chemnitz should indeed be translated into German and
brought to print in installments, each covering one locus, not only for
pastors but for more theologically informed Lutherans generally — in such
a way that, once a suitable translator has been found, the necessary
subscribers be gathered and the work then printed by subscription
[Pränumeration]." On the strength of this declaration, the Reverend
Pastor Frank of Lancaster, O., was asked to take on the labor of
translation. He readily agreed to this, and informed me under date of
March 24 of this year that, with God's help, he had already completed the
translation of the first two loci, on Holy Scripture and on the
Traditions, and that he "lays this work down as a small jubilee gift on
the altar of our Synod." Should our Venerable Synod accept the gift, or
rather have it printed, he would gladly continue with the translation;
his wish is that a member of our Synod competent for the task be charged
with reviewing the work before printing and, where necessary, revising
it, and that whatever proceeds might result from its sale should flow
permanently into the synodical treasury. May the Synod, then, also
express itself on this offer during the present sessions. In case of its
acceptance, I take the liberty of recommending the Reverend Prof. Crämer
as a person eminently suited for the final revision of the translation.

It might perhaps serve the good cause if the Venerable Synod were also to
draw attention to the translation of our Dietrich Catechism into English
undertaken by the Reverend Professor Loy, and to give expression to its
pleasure over it.

Not only did all the districts assent to the Western District's proposal
that the Reverend Pastor Ruhland should prepare, for our present
commemoration of our Synod's 25-year existence, a "memorial" [Denkschrift]
in the form of a chronicle of it, but the aforenamed also promptly and
vigorously set to work on the task assigned to him. But since the
Reverend Pastor Ruhland, already last year, [received] a regular call
into the