# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S131
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

13th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1911. 131

...an assistant who came from the ranks of born Christians. Such a man would admittedly find it much harder to develop a love for the work, but he would be able to have a better effect on some Jews — namely, on those who are more impressed when Christian-raised missionaries make it their life's task to labor for their salvation. That there are indeed a good number of such Jews is shown by the experience of other Jewish missions. In any case it would be good if something could be done to gain at least one more worker for our Jewish Mission. If our present missionary falls ill, or is called away from his work by the Lord of the Church, the entire mission among the Jews must come to a standstill. And if our present missionary remains healthy and lives to be as old as Methuselah, his work alone among the great mass of Jews here will still remain like a drop in the ocean.

Another pious wish is likely to remain just that: to escape the wretched rental conditions under which our Jewish Mission suffers. The mission halls we must rent are small and expensive. Only the lowest class of Jews gathers in them, tightly crowded. At any moment our mission is in danger of being turned out of its premises when the property changes hands through a sale. When we consider that the rent for the hall and the missionary's housing together come to $720.00 a year, that represents a substantial sum of capital, with which something could surely be done. Yet, given the great number of large undertakings our Synod carries on in the Lord's vineyard, we do not venture to put forward any proposal on this matter.

As for the success of our Jewish Mission in New York, it has remained seed sown in hope. If the whole Christian Church on earth, in relation to the unbelieving world, is already called "the little flock," then those converted from among the Jews are called nothing more than "the remnant according to the election of grace," and are compared to the seven thousand men whom God kept for himself out of the millions of Israel in the days of the prophet Elijah (Romans 11:3, 5). Only a few Jews could be prepared by our missionary for holy baptism in the past three years. One intelligent Israelite, who had earned a doctoral title in his old homeland, had himself instructed with no worldly ulterior motives, passed a good examination before the Commission, was baptized by Pastor Schönfeld, and is now a voting member of his congregation. The same happened with a young lady baptized by Pastor Renz. A second young lady, who was under instruction for baptism, unfortunately withdrew from further instruction when she moved away. A third young lady, a glorious fruit of our mission, Mrs. von Schutter, has, under the comfort of Pastor Renz's ministry, we may hope, fallen asleep in comfort and blessedness in faith in Christ.