# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S127
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Ninth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1899. 127

to make use of them, whether these commissioned members are to serve
in the Synod's behalf during the synodical assembly or after it has
ended. Again, it also rests with such voluntarily present members of
the Synod whether they will allow themselves to be used for such
services during the time of the assembly, just as, on the other hand,
once they have taken on a task, they are also bound to carry out the
task they have accepted to the best of their ability."

Resolved, that the Synod acknowledges the foregoing "Answer, etc."
"However, the presidium, in its appointments to committees, shall
restrict itself to the delegates and to the members present by virtue
of their office."

The Synodical Assessment.

"For a number of years now, objection has been raised from various
quarters, especially from among our parochial school teachers, and it
has been urged against our Synod's provision that every standing
member of the Synod shall pay $2.00 annually as a synodical
assessment and shall in return receive all the synodical reports free
of charge. It has been objected to this arrangement that it is not
right for a majority, by a resolution, to impose a tax on a minority
that for the most part may not even vote; that any contribution for
church purposes ought in any case to be a free gift; and that it
should after all be left to the individual whether he wants the
synodical reports or not.

"To these objections the following may now be replied:

"1. The payment of an annual synodical assessment on the part of the
standing members is, in our Synod, not imposed on a minority by a
resolution of a majority, but is ordered by a provision of the
synodical constitution, and has been for as long as the Synod has
existed. Thus it already stands in the draft of the Constitution —
still extant in the original manuscript — that was first signed in
the year before the Synod's organization, on May 20, 1846: 'Every
preacher and teacher who is a member of the Synod shall pay at least
$1.00 annually into the synodical treasury. The former shall also,
where possible, take up a voluntary collection from their
congregations for this fund. This money is to be used: a. to defray
the Synod's general expenses (writing materials, printing costs for
synodical reports, postage, and the like); b. to attain churchly
purposes (the founding and maintaining of church institutions for the
training of future preachers and teachers, and the like).'

"Our Constitution still contains substantially this same provision
today, and whoever joins the Synod thereby of course comes under the
Synod's Constitution, regardless of whether he belongs to a majority
or a