# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1905_S84
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

84 Proceedings of the 26th General or

Deaf-Mute Mission.

"The committee entrusted by the Reverend Synod with the care of
the deaf-mute mission is well aware that other missions of our dear
Synod take precedence in many respects over the work among those
who can neither hear nor speak, but is also convinced that working for
the souls of such poor, wretched people as the deaf-mute are is an
important part of the calling that we, to whom God has graciously
kindled the light of his pure, saving Gospel, have to carry out — a work
that must not be pursued by us half-heartedly, and one that God has
crowned with his blessing.

"Your committee need not describe to the Reverend Synod how
pitiable those of our fellow human beings and fellow redeemed are who
are deprived of hearing and speech. Indeed, in almost every
congregation of our great synodical body there are one or more such
poor people, in whom the dear delegates can see this misery with their
own eyes. Whoever among us is himself the father of a deaf-mute child
and watches it grow up among his other children; whoever can send
his other children to a Christian school and take part with them in the
beautiful services in the house of the Lord, but must keep at home that
poor darling to whom he cannot even tell of his Savior, whom he
cannot teach to pray — he knows what to say of heartache and sorrow.

"We have, thank God, for our children who suffer such an affliction,
an institution near this city, Detroit, where above all they learn the one
thing needful. How important and blessed an institution this is, those
who work in the deaf-mute mission know best of all. How glad they are
when they find, here and there among the deaf-mute, some who have
attended this institution. How comparatively easy their work is with
these, and what pillars they generally have in them in their
congregations and preaching places! Oh, if only all our deaf-mute could
attend this institution!

"But at this institution they remain only until confirmation. Who,
then, is to tend what has been planted here, to check the weeds that
keep springing up again and again, to bring the necessary nourishment
to their weak faith — in short, to exercise pastoral care over them and
tell them God's Word? Who is to seek out, in the first place, the many
hundreds, indeed thousands, of deaf-mute who were likewise
purchased by Christ's blood, and who the blessing of the Christian
teaching and instruction in this institution