# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S339
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 125 —

Publishing Important Writings and an English
Biography of Dr. Walther.

To the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States,
assembled as the 13th Delegate Synod at St. Louis, Mo., in
May 1911.

Reverend fathers and brothers!

This year we celebrate the hundredth birthday of Dr. Walther. The
time of our fathers seems to us a great time, a time full of wonders of
the power and grace of our God, and Dr. Walther seems to us the great
instrument by which God chiefly made that time a time of great
gracious visitation.

What Dr. Walther was to the church, the younger generation does
not know as the old knew and know it. He does indeed speak to us as
a preacher in an impressive series of sermon books, of which only a
few were published in his lifetime; but as the theological teacher of our
church, as a theological writer, he recedes all the more, the greater the
number becomes (and it keeps growing) of those who do not have his
writings from the old volumes of our periodicals ("Der Lutheraner" and
"Lehre und Wehre"), as well as other publications. Few besides the old
have these writings, and where they can be found secondhand, the
price is for most of them prohibitively high.

We are well aware that besides his precious sermon books we have
from Dr. Walther a number of splendid theological books as well; but
we believe that Walther, where he has long since fallen silent for so
many, comes to speak for himself even more there than in all the
theological books he published. We would very much regret it if those
old volumes of our periodicals and other publications, once in large
part Walther's lectern before the church, should become Walther's
grave. We believe that Walther was, to a great extent through the
writings that, if nothing is done, will fall into oblivion, the great
instrument by which our Synod became what it is, and through which
so great a blessing has gone out far beyond the borders of our Synod.

Through the publication of ever new sermon books we have seen to
it that Walther as a preacher is heard and appreciated more and more.
Should we not, in this jubilee year, see to it that Walther, also in
writings where he once spoke not as a preacher to a single congregation
but as a theological teacher, as the father of our Synod, directly to
the Synod, to the church, be heard and appreciated more? We believe
it would be a blessing to the Synod and the church if Walther, with his
own power of speech, his tremendous earnestness, his fiery zeal for the
pure divine truth, his readiness for battle,