# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1857_S113
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...remain lying in the writing desk during his long stay in Breslau (this time three full weeks)? That would be very doubtful indeed. There inventive love, driven by need, now steps in with its operations. The travel expenses of all the pastors and lay deputies (each congregation may also send one) are met from a synodal fund. Into this every communicant pays one Silbergroschen annually. Through such "synodal groschen" there had come in, at the synod of 1852, 1,611 Thaler 6 Groschen, while 1,556 Thaler 6 Groschen had been spent, so that a balance of 54 Thaler 29 Groschen remained. In the period now concluded matters stood similarly. Alongside this, the great hospitality of the Breslau Lutheran congregation must also be mentioned, which granted free lodging and board to most of the synod delegates, and this time also raised, out of free love, 70 Thaler toward covering the extra expenses of the pastors and deputies.

Our congregations have a hard time of it. They must raise the salary of their pastors and schoolteachers themselves. This is done according to a fixed assessment. In no congregation, however, is a married pastor to be installed unless it can raise a fixed stipend of 300 Thaler. Many congregations are unable to do this, and yet one cannot leave them without a pastor. Then the Oberkirchencollegium must step in from its general treasury and make up the difference. But besides this, no small number of assistant preachers must also be appointed and salaried (at an annual salary of 150 or even 200 Thaler), which likewise for the most part must be supplied by the Oberkirchencollegium. How is help to be found here? For its little jar of oil — though it was filled in the year 1848, through the "Appeal of the Church" then issued, with 9,496 Thaler 18 Groschen 5 Pfennig of brotherly love flowing in from every quarter — would soon run short again, as the proverb says: whoever keeps taking flour out of the bin without ever putting any back will soon reach the bottom! Some other way must be found to forestall this predicament, this want. This is done in a modest, unassuming manner through what is called among us the "penny box," which someone carries around among the congregations, and into which each communicant is to put one penny weekly. In this way, in the four years from 1852 to 1856, 6,333 Thaler 26 Groschen 8 Pfennig came in, and 4,960 Thaler 25 Groschen 4 Pfennig were spent. Individual congregations received substantial subsidies.

But let us now turn to the inner proceedings of the General Synod. It was opened on the morning of September 18 with a solemn worship service in the Lutheran Church of St. Katharine. — After the sermon the Holy Supper was celebrated, in which 39 pastors, the members of the Oberkirchencollegium, 27 deputies, and many congregation members took part.

Immediately after the close of the worship service, the sessions began