# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S308
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 94 —

...stands, not everything could be done that the circumstances and the
Synod's regulations required. No one who examines the situation even
briefly will be surprised at this. Consider, first, that under our
present arrangement the Reverend General *Präses* [president] must
watch over purity and unity of doctrine, visit as many district synods
as possible, inspect the ten institutions of higher learning, receive
reports from the district presidents and confer with them on important
matters, represent the Synod in inter-synodical negotiations, carry on
an extensive correspondence, give counsel in many matters of conscience
— which, though not always most closely connected with the
administration of his office, could not in Christian love be turned
away — watch over the execution of the Synod's resolutions by
exhorting and encouraging through word and writing, and perform a host
of other tasks that demand strenuous thought and great caution;
consider, second, that the Reverend vice-presidents, besides the
important synodical office they hold, are also pastors of mostly very
populous congregations, from which their synodical service separates
them for about two months in years when district synods are held: then
we must indeed pay the highest tribute to the competence, faithfulness
to duty, and self-denial that our esteemed officers have shown, but we
must also grant that they are right when they complain that, for lack
of available time, they have not in every case been able to discharge
the duties of the General Presidency as the importance of these duties
would require.

If we were therefore to make an arrangement that enables the General
*Präses* to carry out all the functions of his high office with the
necessary expenditure of time and strength, and that also gives the
vice-presidents the opportunity to serve the Synod without falling into
a crisis of conscience over long absence from their congregations, we
would thereby take a step that corresponds to the high importance of
the presidential office and will without any doubt bring blessed
consequences for the orthodox Church.

In now proposing such an arrangement, the Pastoral Conference of Fort
Wayne and vicinity by no means wishes to claim that it is the only
possible and correct one; but the proposed course is the one that, at a
meeting called by the said conference for this purpose, seemed to it
the best and the most practically feasible. In what follows it only
sketches the outlines of the plan in general and leaves it to the
Synod, should it choose to adopt it as its own, to establish the more
precise provisions, arrangements, and regulations itself.

The Conference ventures to propose to the Reverend Synod the following
organization of the General Presidency:

1. The Reverend General *Präses* stands at the head of the Synod, as
well as of the Presidial College, and retains in future all those
rights