# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 44 —

V. Visitations:

By Pastor Otto Hanser, the visitor for the New England district, visitations were carried out with:

1. Pastor A. Ebendick. 2. Pastor Chr. Weisel. 3. Pastor H. Walker. 4. Pastor C. C. Schmidt. 5. Pastor F. W. Föhlinger. 6. Pastor C. Gräber. 7. Pastor V. Both. Also at the congregations in College Point, Williamsburgh, Paterson, Yorkville, New York, [and] Meriden.

By myself were visited the pastors Von Brandt, Fleckenstein, Kanold, and Oestermeier, and the congregations in Middleton, Can., North East, Marilla, Wolcottsville, and Tonawanda.

C. Gross.

Proceedings of the Synod.

As its most important item, the Synod took up for discussion the

Guiding Theses

already made known in the "Lutheraner," which read as follows:

What task must we accomplish, so that the blessing which God has poured out upon us in the last twenty-five years is not squandered by us, but passed on as an inheritance to our descendants?

I. What is this blessing?

1. That, in a time of almost universal falling-away from the Lutheran faith and the greatest fragmentation of the Lutheran Church, unity in pure Lutheran doctrine exists among us, free from any tendency toward Romanizing [*papistizirend*] or unionistic direction.

2. A steady, uninterrupted growth of our Synod in the number of its members, without any external political compulsion, or compulsion of conscience, or earthly interest having induced them to join — and therefore an ever-increasing influence of our Synod upon our immigrant fellow believers.

3. The flourishing condition of our educational institutions for the training of preachers and schoolteachers.

4. The blessed condition of our parish-school system, such that our children are not abandoned to the irreligious public schools [*Freischulen*].

5. A treasury of orthodox, sound books, which enable Christians eager to learn to grow in Christian understanding and to cultivate Christian family devotions.