# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1887_S64
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

64 Proceedings of the 20th General or

"2. The neglected Christians among us, and likewise the Jews and
Negroes living among us, have, through living alongside the Christian
people and through sharing the same national language with us, a daily
opportunity to hear the Gospel of Christ and thereby be led to salvation;
and if they do not make use of this opportunity, that is, for the most
part, their own fault. But the Indians and the distant heathen are cut off
from the blessings of Christian influence for as long as Christians fail to
bring them the preaching of the Word of God. Therefore, if they do not
enjoy the preaching of the Gospel, the chief fault is ours, since we neglect
them and pass by their misery without any real compassion.

"3. The Lord has already opened wide for us the door to the Indians
and to the distant heathen. — The mission among the Indians we
carried on, after all, not without success, in earlier years in Michigan and
also in Minnesota, and we would only need to take it up again. — As for
the inaccessibility in which the distant heathen of Asia, Africa, and
Australia had, for the most part, so long closed themselves off from all
contact with Christian peoples — that, thank God, has been broken
through and done away with. The difficulty of learning their languages,
too, is being overcome more and more, and the Bible has already been
translated into all the principal heathen languages; indeed, more is being
done every day to perfect such Bible translations.

"4. That, in undertaking missions in foreign heathen lands, we would
run the risk of encroaching on the territory of other mission societies —
that is in no way to be feared, since, for example, the lands of China,
Japan, the East Indies, and Central Africa offer such immense stretches
of territory that a collision between the various mission societies can
easily be avoided.

"5. That we should still wait to open a mission among the Indians
and distant heathen because God has not yet given us the men who
possess the gifts and abilities needed for it — that we cannot grant. We
should, rather, look about carefully to see whether God has not long
since brought us such men, whose mission gifts have so far remained
unknown, or at least unused; we should, further, diligently and earnestly
entreat the Lord that He would give and awaken in us, more and more,
such gifts as are needed for carrying out the mission work described.

"6. For this reason, however, it is also not enough that, now and
then, this or that candidate or pastor among us be encouraged toward
mission service and sent out for it; rather, what we need is a mission
house of our own, in which a mission director of our own works — one
who should not be hindered by any other principal office, so that he may
live and work wholly for the task of his directorate, also in association with

[SCAN: faint word-fragments show through on the right margin from the facing page (p-071); not transcribed.]