# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

18  Proceedings of the 28th General or

After the registration of the Synod's members had taken place, the Reverend Vice-President F. Pfotenhauer read the following

Synodical Address.

—————

We lift up our eyes to the hills, from which our help comes. Amen.

Reverend and beloved fathers and brothers in the Lord!

We have come together here in St. Louis these days to hold a delegate assembly of the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. Such an assembly is a large and impressive body. It is large and impressive first if one looks at the number of delegates. No fewer than 600 brothers have seat and vote here. It is further large and impressive in view of the territory that is represented by the delegates present here. Our Synod presently numbers, in round figures, 2,200 pastors and professors, 1,000 teachers, 3,800 congregations and preaching stations, 2,130 day schools, and 880,000 souls. These are scattered across the western hemisphere: in the United States, in Canada, in Brazil, and in Argentina. Indeed, our fellow believers in Europe, Asia, and Australia are also represented here these days through commissions, so that children of God on almost every continent are taking a lively interest in our present proceedings. Finally, our Delegate Synod is large and impressive when one considers the gifts that have been given to it. We have in our midst men who are widely famed for their theological scholarship and who have proven themselves in the Lord's battles as tested heralds and leaders, whose writings are read in thousands of homes, who have grown gray in church and school service, and who have filled great cities and vast territories with the preaching of the Word of God.

But we must not think that, because our Synod is a large and impressive body, everything it does must therefore also be great and valuable. Church history teaches that it was precisely great and impressive councils that erred grossly and that through their proceedings and decisions robbed whole generations and great countries forever of important parts of the wholesome doctrine and of the divine life. Therefore we all have every reason to be on our guard in these days, to despair of all our own wisdom, and to beseech God fervently that the Holy Spirit be our guide and leader. If we now ask what above all else we need to know if our synodical proceedings are to be a blessing and a benefit to the church, the answer is: all of us who have come together here for common work must recognize clearly and vividly that the preaching of the gospel is the actual