# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S87
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 87 —

perhaps have him preach precisely on the subject through which this or
that person might be awakened. Then the devil is quick to keep the
person from attending that particular service, and the person lets himself
easily be kept away and so misses the hour of his visitation. How many a
one will hear from God in eternity: On this Sunday I moved the preacher
to deal with this and that, which could have served your salvation, through
which you could have been awakened — but you followed the devil and
your own lazy flesh, and stayed away. — This the delegates should indeed
take to heart and impress upon their congregations as well.

Further, among what the congregations must do for the preservation
of the blessing, it is stated: "The congregations should also establish and
support Christian parish schools." Among us this is, of course, a settled
matter: that we do not send our children to the public schools, but have
parish schools instead. A mere Sunday school does not satisfy our needs
either; it is only a poor makeshift. Our parish schools are the nurseries of
the church, from which the young saplings, once they have grown up
properly, are transplanted into the orchard of the church. The better our
parish schools are, the better the condition of our congregations will also
be. No congregation should shy away from the burdens connected with
establishing a parish school. Yet one should not only establish parish
schools but also support them; if we fail to do this, we should not be
surprised when some parents who are members of the congregation take
their children out of the parish school and send them to the public
schools. Even with regard to matters belonging only to this temporal life,
congregations should be diligent in raising the standard of their school.
Congregations have, after all, received the means from God to raise up
their schools; although poor at first upon their arrival in this country,
many have now attained prosperity. To what end? Do they have this
prosperity in order to leave great treasures to their children? No, certainly
not, but above all so that their children too may keep the heavenly
treasures. Our congregation members should not grow resentful that they
must still pay their school taxes, since the state, after all, must also have
its schools. Here it was remarked that the school is the concern of the
whole congregation, not only of those who have children of school age.
Even those who have no children, or whose children are already grown,
should still gladly help. As a serious hindrance to the flourishing of the
school, especially in the countryside, excessive absences were named.
Our school, it was further said, is, next to the pure doctrine, the highest
treasure we have. The greatest misery in the American churches is,
alongside false doctrine, that they have no parish schools, send their
children to the state schools, and have let their parish schools go under.
At first this was, admittedly, not yet so bad as now, because at first there
was still more religious