# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S23
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13th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1911.  23

Presidential Address.

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The District Synods.

At the last meeting of the Delegate Synod in 1908 the Synod numbered 20 districts. Through the splitting off of the North Dakota and Montana District, which was carried out last year (1910), the number of districts has risen to 21. Before the Delegate Synod now assembled lies a petition from the "Ev. Luth. Congregational Conference of New Zealand," in which this conference seeks synodical affiliation with our Synod. — At all district assemblies during the past triennium as well, the doctrinal proceedings stood in the foreground. Among the so-called business proceedings, the discussion of mission work and of the educational institutions rightly took first place. The representatives of the General Synod must again this time bear witness that the delegates from among the laity everywhere showed great interest in the doctrinal proceedings. The districts are also making an effort to acquaint the individual congregations better with the proceedings and resolutions of the district synods than has been done up to now. Some district synods have had the report of their district printed for this purpose in as many copies as the district has voting members, and distributed among their membership. That was certainly one good means of acquainting the individual congregations with the church's work and of inspiring them for this work.

Our Mission Work.

Printed special reports on the individual branches of our mission work are before the Synod. These are the reports on General Home Missions at home and abroad, on foreign-language missions at home, on the mission to the heathen in India, and on the missions among the Indians, the Jews, and the emigrants. Especially gratifying this time, too, is the report on our mission to the heathen in India. After we had worked for more than a decade, as it seemed, almost in vain, and only a few heathen could be baptized, the Lord of the church has so blessed the work of our missionaries in the past triennium that, following careful prior instruction, baptisms of heathen were carried out in greater numbers. In the foreground, to be sure, still stands the so-called Home Missions in the United States, in Canada, and in South America. At the close of the previous triennium, in 1907, the number of preaching stations was 941. At the close of this triennium, at the end of 1910, the number has risen — according to the "Statistical Yearbook" — to 1,031. That is an increase of 90 stations. The great territory of the West and Northwest still calls, as before, for the most zealous mission activity. But in the past triennium our attention has, in particular,