# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S299
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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to keep him. But he explained that they could not pay him enough of
a salary. So these people read their Bibles and devotional books at
home, send their children mostly to the Presbyterian Sunday school,
and even have their little ones baptized and their dead buried by
that denomination's pastor. They heard with great joy that they
might perhaps, through us, be helped to obtain a Finnish pastor. To
be sure, that pastor's answer had shaken their confidence that they
could get a pastor of their own. But without my even asking, they
gladly and willingly promised to contribute regularly toward the
support of a pastor of their own. All the families I visited own
their own little house. Some have already lived there for six years.
In the judgment of experts, the copper mines are supposed to hold
enough copper for fifty years and longer. It is highly probable that
these people, if not right from the start, will very soon be in a
position to support their own pastor. More Finns, too, keep steadily
arriving, both from the North and from across the water. A centrally
located meeting place for their worship services would be available
right from the start, namely a Presbyterian chapel.

On the strength of the above report, the South California
Conference accordingly resolved to call upon the Reverend Mission
Commission of our district to submit a memorial at the next Delegate
Synod, asking the General Synod either to take over the mission
among the Finns, specifically at Bisbee, as a branch of its
foreign-language missions, or to supply our district with the funds
necessary for it to take over and conduct this mission itself. The
Reverend Synod will surely have all the more courage and readiness
for this, since

1. it will presumably take little support to get the mission in
Bisbee under way; after the travel costs and the salary for a few
months have been covered, it will probably be able to support itself;

2. so great a number of souls is already at hand (60 to 70
families) who most earnestly long for the ministrations of the
church, and among the great mass of Finns who have fallen away,
surely, with God's help, not a few more may yet be won back;

3. our district is not in a position to take up this mission
itself, since we ourselves still stand in need of the support of our
eastern brothers;

4. that one Finnish candidate for the ministry at Springfield is
surely a sign from God that this man, with his gifts, should be
allowed to serve these people (having now been informed of all this
by Prof. R. Pieper, he is accordingly preparing himself especially
for preaching in Finnish);

5. since he is also proficient in German, he could take up and
serve the small German band of Lutherans in Bisbee as well.

A. E. Michel, secretary.