# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1914. 21

Prof. G. Stöckhardt was taken by death. Prof. A. Crull has been
visited with a serious illness. The instructional building of the
newly established institution at River Forest was destroyed by fire.
— Since it is 75 years since our first college was founded, jubilee
services will be held next Sunday to thank God for His goodness and
faithfulness.

Our Missions.

Our missions have made gratifying progress. Home missions in North
America is still our principal mission. In it, together with the
foreign-language mission and the deaf-mute mission, 660 missionaries
are currently at work at 1600 stations. In Brazil God continues to
bless us; yet the need is ever more apparent for an experienced
mission director to be appointed there, to assist the young pastors
and congregations with counsel and help. Our *Heidenmission* [mission
to the heathen] in India has been visited by our mission director.
After a long, cold winter it is beginning to sprout and bud there
mightily. Petitions are before the Synod to extend the emigrant
mission to other ports and to place all the emigrant missions under
one commission, similar to the foreign-language missions. The
missions have not lacked the necessary funds, with the exception of
our principal mission, home missions in North America. The Synod is
asked to remedy this shortfall.

Our Finances.

The synodical treasury closed on April 1 with a deficit of $31,000.
A whole series of congregations still does not contribute regularly
to the collections for it. For the synodical building fund $200,000
was authorized by the last Synod. About $170,000 has been collected.
To cover the fire damage at River Forest, $42,000 had come in to the
synodical treasurers by May 1, so that with the insurance payment
received the loss of $60,000 has already been fully made good. The
synodical property at Addison has been sold for about $29,000.

On March 8 of this year our Synod suffered a heavy blow, when our
faithful and deserving treasurer Schuricht, who administered our
funds for twelve years with rare fidelity and great skill, died
after a lengthy illness.

Various memorials are before the Synod aiming to put our financial
affairs in better order. However certain it is, on the one hand,
that we ought to improve in this regard, we must not forget, on the
other hand, that the Church is not a business house, and that the
finances of God's kingdom may not be regulated by purely commercial
principles.