# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S70
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

70 Proceedings of the 24th General, or

"That this mixture of elements is present not only in rare
exceptional cases but at numerous places where mission work could
and should be carried on is confirmed by the observations and
experience not only of our traveling preachers but also of many local
pastors, for whom the language question is asserting itself more
keenly from year to year. As an illustration, the Home Missions of the
Western District of our Synod may serve as an example. Under the
oversight of the Commission for Home Missions of this district, 21
preachers are currently at work. Of these, only four still preach
exclusively in German, while 17 regularly have to preach in both
German and English. In addition, four mission fields are still vacant,
in which likewise both German and English work will be needed, so
that once these fields are filled the ratio between the fields with
German-and-English services and those still purely German will stand
at 21 to 4.

"From the above figures it further follows that the Home Missions
Commission of this one district is already carrying on English Mission
work to a greater extent than the Commission for the English Mission
in its own territory, which extends even beyond the boundaries of our
General Synod — that is, having the pure Gospel proclaimed by means
of the English language in places touched by the Synod's mission
activity. In most cases it is such that in one and the same place the
congregations cannot be sharply divided, or could not be divided, by
language, since the language boundaries often run not only through
families and kinship groups but even through individual persons, of
whom it is hard to say whether they should be counted to the German
or to the English element. In many places it will remain the case for
years to come that the people who gather around the pure confession
will be served most beneficially if, belonging to the same congregational
body or at least the same parish, they are provided by one pastor with
preaching and other spiritual care in German and English as needed.
But should a shift in the language boundaries occur, it will in all
likelihood naturally move not in the direction from English to German,
but from German to English, since the element more accessible to
English will show ever greater numbers, in growing measure, partly
through the change taking place within our old congregations
themselves, partly through increase from outside, while the German
element, by contrast, will experience a decline that, though perhaps
slow, will be steady. This shift of the language boundary will proceed
more quickly in some places, more slowly in others, depending on local
circumstances and other conditions, but in the long run it will not be
haltable even under the conditions most favorable to German. In one
of our old German congregations