# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S155
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1914.                    155

pass through the district's fund. Surpluses in the district funds
should from time to time be delivered to the General Student Fund.
Needy students from abroad, as well as those who cannot be given the
necessary help from their own district's fund, would have to turn to
the General Student Fund. — This arrangement would help ensure that
precisely those congregations that have no young men of their own to
support would still want to do something each year for the so
important student fund.

6. Charity Fund. Under this fund every district would receipt all
gifts for orphanages and all charitable institutions, as well as
children's aid societies and the like, matters with which the Synod as
such does not concern itself.

What would be the advantages of this arrangement?

1. There would be more order, more system, in the matter. Order is
useful in all things, especially in money matters, and most of all
when they are of many different kinds.

2. Collecting would be easier and more successful. One can certainly
raise a significant sum more easily for 6 treasuries than for 25 or
50, since the few treasuries can easily be kept in mind and always
held before the people, so that everyone remains constantly aware that
they ought to sacrifice something for each of them — whereas the many
treasuries can hardly be kept in memory by the pastors, let alone by
all the members; still less can they all be remembered regularly,
according to their needs.

3. The distribution of the gifts would be more even and more just, for
the administrators of the treasuries would have a better view of the
situation. This holds especially for the mission treasury.

4. The receipts would be considerably shortened, and at the same time
clearer and more instructive; the treasurers' work would also be
eased.

The last of these would be achieved to a high degree if the following
rules were established:

a. Only the congregation is receipted, and that under its pastor's
name; never the giver's name, unless there is a particular reason for
publishing the name.

b. The district treasurers send all money for the treasuries of the
General Synod — including that for the Negro Mission — to the General
Treasurer, and he forwards it to the commission concerned.

c. At the start of each year, all district treasurers send the
General Treasurer a one-line tabular report giving the total sum of
each treasury, the number of communicants in the district, and the
average sum that would fall to each member if all had given equally.
The General Treasurer compiles these reports, arranged alphabetically,
and publishes them along with his report in the *Lutheraner* and the
*Lutheran Witness*.