# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S154
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

154 Proceedings of the 28th General or

...the hymnal, for instance, should be printed according to the rules of the new orthography. This should be done if only for the school's sake. Our children should see the words in the hymnal written the same way they find them in their other schoolbooks. The Synod therefore already resolved on this revision six years ago. Three years ago, however, the Synod's attention was drawn to the fact that a revision of our hymnal was also desirable in another respect. Through diligent research in the old libraries of Germany, more is now known about our hymns and their authors than our fathers could have known sixty years ago. The Synod therefore resolved three years ago that the introduction of the new orthography should be postponed for another three years. Deliberations on the proposal for further revision were to take place at the next Delegate Synod (that is, at the one now in session). Specific proposals for this were to be submitted by a committee — P. J. Schlerf, Prof. A. Crull, and Prof. O. Hattstädt. Meanwhile the members of the committee were to publish articles in *Lehre und Wehre* [Doctrine and Defense] showing what improvements were intended and might be called for.

"The commission named has now, over the past three years, accomplished a work whose scope we can scarcely properly imagine; it has earned the recognition and thanks of the Synod for the diligence and love with which it devoted itself to its task. Even if the Synod's resolution of three years ago did not oblige us to deliberate on revision at the present convention, the excellent work of the commission now before us should alone move us to take up the matter.

"The undersigned committee has now been charged by the Reverend General President with receiving the commission's work, examining it, and transmitting it to the Reverend Synod. In the short time available to us, we have sought to the best of our ability to fulfill our task, and we now ask the Reverend Synod for a favorable hearing.

"First we would like to recommend to the Synod the adoption of the following

Rules and Measures
we recommend:

"1. The revision must not render either the whole hymnal or any of its hymns, in their present form, unusable for public worship.

"2. The revision must not make the book more expensive.

"3. The Synod shall appoint a commission, to which final decision shall be entrusted over the whole revision and all its parts. This new commission consists of the present commission — P. J. Schlerf and Professors A. Crull and O. Hattstädt — together with the faculties of our institutions at St. Louis, Springfield, Addison, and Seward.