# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1857_S154
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

154 From and about South Australia.

that continent and country was moved to a Sunday. For this matter, those in favor were especially the congregations situated to the south, namely Lobethal, Blumenberg, Hahndorf, Salem, etc., against the congregations lying to the north, namely Bethany, Hoffnungsthal, Rosenthal, Schönborn, Ebenezer, Paret Hill, etc.

Then a new General Church College was formed, at the head of which stands Pastor Meyer as president, and to which also belong the pastors Fritzsche, Oster, Strempel, and Hensel, together with six lay members from the various congregations.

The pastors Fritzsche, Meyer, and Oster have the strongest congregations, and among them Pastor Oster in turn has the strongest, since he has to serve both Hoffnungsthal and Rosenthal and lives, alternately, fourteen days in the one place and again fourteen days in the other. To this parish also belongs Lyndoch Valley, with its immense extent of seven and a half English miles, partly toward Hoffnungsthal and partly toward Rosenthal. Pastor Meyer has four congregations, which together, however, are not as large as the parish just mentioned. He lives at Bethany and travels every third Sunday either to Schönborn or to Ebenezer, and besides that, once every quarter-year, to Paret Hill, and then again to another place twenty-five to thirty English miles to the north. This is the most scattered flock. Pastor Fritzsche has the most compact one, for Lobethal most resembles a town. Pastor Hensel also has a far-flung congregation, namely Blumenberg, but does not need to travel; and Pastor Strempel has Hahndorf and its surroundings. Pastor Teichelmann is in charge of the newly formed congregation of Salem on the Bremer River.

At the aforesaid synod the establishment of a Lutheran gymnasium was also resolved upon, which is to be expanded, as need requires, up to the level of a university, in order in future to train preachers and teachers fully within the country itself, and also otherwise to further scientific education. The synod delegates present at once subscribed 258 pounds sterling, and subscription sheets were then laid out in the congregations. The brethren hope in this way to raise at least 1,500 pounds sterling, and intend then to turn to Germany in order to secure capable teachers of our confession.

For this undertaking, for which we wish to entreat them God's grace and blessing, our fellow believers there face all the greater difficulties in that by far the greatest part of the German population — which numbers in all some 10,000 to 12,000 souls — sadly proves to be wholly unchurched. For from the number of deputies for the synod it has emerged that perhaps only a little over 1,600 confirmed members, of whom some 150 more come from Portland Bay, make up the whole body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church there, and are shepherded by the seven pastors named. For the eighth of the pastors, Pastor Klose, lives at Morphett Vale, upon