# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S91
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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as well as the emigrant mission; — matters concerning hospitals and
orphanages; — Lutheran literature in general and the work of Lutheran
tract [devotional pamphlet] publishing in particular; — the matter of
training preachers and schoolteachers, and the like.

§ VI. Manner of Execution.

a) The members of the Synodical Conference: — they are partly voting
members, partly advisory only; the former are the preachers and
congregational deputies delegated to it by the synods concerned, the latter
all those present who are either standing members of the synods concerned,
or who served as congregational deputies at the synodical conventions held
next before. For the present, every synod concerned that numbers eighty
or fewer voting members is entitled to elect four representatives; each
additional forty voting members beyond eighty grants the right to elect two
further representatives, as does any fraction of forty as well — though
always with preachers and deputies in equal number.

b) Time of meeting: — annually in July.

c) Officers of the body: — a chairman chosen for one year from among
the theologians, and a secretary, as well as a treasurer, each with an
alternate.

d) Length of session: — six days at most.

§ VII. Constitution.

The constitution of the Synodical Conference goes into effect once it
has been confirmed by a concurring resolution of all the synods concerned;
— likewise, amendments to the constitution can obtain validity and force
only through such a resolution; — the Synodical Conference has the power
to attach to its statutes such subordinate provisions as neither contradict
the constitutions of the synods concerned nor draw matters within the
competence of the individual synods into its own sphere.

After the foregoing constitution had been read, it was then discussed
paragraph by paragraph, of which the following is a summary account.

On § 1, concerning the name, it was said by way of explanation: We
intend to establish a conference in which synods, through their
representatives, may confer with and strengthen one another, and so
forth. — Our conference is not to be a Grabauian church court [a pointed
reference to Johannes Andreas Grabau's Buffalo Synod church polity] or a
Church-Council. It has no governing authority over the church
whatsoever. — § 1 was approved and adopted.

§ 2, containing the confession of the Synodical Conference, was
adopted without further discussion.

§ 3 deals with purpose and goal. Since the purpose and goal named
include: striving toward a delimitation of the synods along territorial
lines, so