# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S345
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 131 —

After lengthy deliberation, a committee was therefore appointed,
consisting of Pastors G. A. Bernthal and J. H. Schröder, Teacher J. H.
Hargens, and Messrs. E. Meese and C. Claussen, charged with
addressing a petition to the next Delegate Synod, asking that it elect a
commission for preliminary deliberation and instruct it to present to
the General Synod in the year 1914 a uniform and as precisely
specified as possible plan for the celebration of the four-hundredth
jubilee of the Reformation of the church, which is to take place in the
year 1917, so that then the whole Synod, as well as the individual
districts and congregations, will have ample time and opportunity to
deliberate on everything necessary in a right, united mind and spirit
and to carry it out in a manner pleasing to God.

In hereby discharging this commission, we ask a Reverend Synod
to devote a few minutes of its precious time to the matter named and
to act according to its best judgment.

In the name and on behalf of the above-named committee, signed
with all respect,
San Francisco, Cal., March 22, 1911. G. A. Bernthal.

Establishing a Lutheran Deaconess Home.

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

From June 21 to June 24, 1910, the conference of the hospital,
child-welfare, and city mission societies met at Red Wing, Minn. At
this conference, among other things, the establishment of a Lutheran
deaconess home was resolved. "Lutheran," I say; for we, the
representatives and advocates of this Lutheran deaconess home, want
nothing to do with the unbiblical deaconess system that today spreads
among so many enthusiasts and pseudo-Lutherans and is nothing other
than a Protestant form of nunnery. Rightly has "Der Lutheraner"
warned against such an unbiblical deaconess system. (Vol. 26, p. 35.)
No, here we speak of a Lutheran deaconess home, which Lutheran
maidens who have already passed their twentieth year, and childless
widows, may enter who, for the love of Christ, wish to learn nursing
and the like and make it their life's calling. The home cares for them,
grants them their livelihood, tends them in sickness, and gives them a
Christian burial if they still belong to the home at their death. But no
unscriptural vow that would violate their conscience is demanded of
these maidens and widows. They have the right at any time to leave
their service and enter into holy marriage or devote themselves to
another calling, especially