# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   13

Once the organization was completed, the Reverend General President read
the following Synodal address, together with the presidential report [Präſidialbericht].

Synodal Address.

"The LORD has done great things for us, whereof we are glad."
(Psalm 126:3.)

This word of the Psalm surely expresses what now moves our heart and
what we must therefore, above all else, proclaim aloud. The LORD has
done great things for us — a great help in the great distresses that had
befallen us.

Let us only think back. A heavy pressure lay upon us all when we last
came together. An article of our Christian faith had been attacked — one
that Scripture clearly reveals and our confession just as clearly testifies to;
an article which, if overthrown, would necessarily have dragged down with
it the foundation on which our salvation rests. In its place an attempt had
been made to substitute a doctrine which, if accepted, would have shifted
our salvation onto an entirely different ground.

And this was not done directly and openly — that would scarcely have
posed a danger — but rather in a fairly veiled manner and under a
deceptive appearance. It was claimed, loudly and solemnly, that what was
being opposed was not the doctrine of Scripture and of the Confessions,
but rather our own dreadful falsification of it; that it was the truth of the
Gospel itself which one sought to rescue from us and preserve for
Christendom.

And those who spoke so were not our old enemies, whose voice was
familiar. They were brothers who did this. They protested that their
hearts bled for it, but that they could not do otherwise. Therein lay the
danger.

And this danger had come fairly close to us. There were already, even
among ourselves at that time, some who stood openly on the side of our
accusers. Others seemed to be on the way there. Many had allowed
themselves to become confused. Not a few saw nothing before their eyes
but division or the ruin of our fellowship. Indeed, who can deny it — with
anxious hearts we all awaited the things that were to come. So it stood
with us when we last assembled. Strife without, fear within.

And now? Now we see here nothing but joyful faces. Our sorrow has
been turned into joy. The danger is past. The struggle has been
overcome. We have peace. Is that not something great?

But how so? Does not the din of war still sound around us even today?
Is not the air still full of our enemies' arrows? And we

[On the left margin, faint text from the facing table page shows through sideways/upside
down; not transcribed — see the finds file.]