# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1911 06 27_S203
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

203

From Olden Times.

Grants of the Synod in the Year 1874.

With notes by D. Walther.

"The first delegate assembly of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States held its sessions from the 14th to the 23rd of October in Fort Wayne, Ind. And, thanks be to the Lord, it was a richly blessed assembly. Our delegates were able to return home to those who had sent them with a message of joy. It might seem to some that the message that more than $81,000 (1) must be raised is not a message of joy, and yet it is nothing else. For the granting of part of this sum was indeed necessary in order, as the call to the Synod put it, 'to gather in and secure the wealth of blessing poured out upon us.' A farmer is surely not saddened but glad when he must add on to his barn; how much more should we not be glad and praise and thank God for the wonderful grace of the Lord our God! 'The Lord is still among us, the Lord will continue to be gracious to our Synod' — that was the impression that surely all took home from this assembly. And the faithful God, who has helped until now, will help further and make hearts glad and willing to give and to lend to him." So reported the late Prof. Günther in the "Lutheraner" (vol. 30, p. 165).

Two months later D. Walther brought the relevant Synodical report to notice and used the occasion to add a heartfelt encouragement to all congregations regarding the grants mentioned. May his eloquent words, governed by the Spirit of God, now echo anew through all circles of our present-day Synodical congregations, for renewed consideration and encouragement! They read:

"By his free grace God has deemed our dear Synod worthy of a twofold great blessing: first, that ever more congregations have gained confidence in it and therefore urgently request pastors and schoolteachers from it in particular; and second, that at the same time ever more parents have been moved by God to dedicate their sons to the holy preaching office and to the office of teaching in the church, and therefore to hand them over to our institutions, in which pastors and schoolteachers are trained. (2) The result of this has again been twofold: first, that all our institutions have become overcrowded, and second, that we have therefore been placed under the necessity not only of continually appointing more teachers, but also of enlarging and increasing our institutional buildings. What then shall be done, you beloved congregations of our Synod? The increase of teachers at our institutions naturally requires more abundant, regular support of our Synodical treasury, since apart from our Synodical publishing house we have no source of income but your love. But the new buildings now needed in Addison, in Fort Wayne, and in Springfield call for special effort and extraordinary offerings of love on your part. Would you now, you dear congregations, in order to be spared these efforts and offerings of love, perhaps say to God: 'It is enough, Lord, stop blessing us! Your blessing is becoming a burden to us that we cannot and will not bear'? The writer of these lines is convinced: no, you cannot say that. Are you not greatly indebted to God for having given you not only the saving, pure Gospel, but also having brought you to a saving knowledge of it, while thousands beside you are handed stones instead of bread? And tell yourselves, why has God until now, even in these hard times, provided you for the most part with 'all that is needed for the sustenance of body and life' not merely sparingly, but 'abundantly and daily'? Is it not so that you might in turn render God the debt of thanks with your earthly gifts and goods? For what could you rather bring your earthly offerings than for this, that pastors and teachers be raised up in church and school who break the bread of life for the hungry souls who anxiously cry out for it, and who, even after our poor mortal body has long since decayed in the grave and our redeemed soul triumphs before God's throne, still teach our children and children's children in our churches and schools the pure, saving Gospel?

"Well then, you dear congregations, with your pastors, schoolteachers, and congregational officers at the head, go joyfully and promptly to the work and take up collections of gifts of love, so that the resolutions which your representatives passed in your name at the last delegate synod, trusting in the Lord's power to move hearts, may not remain mere dead resolutions and good intentions, but become deed and truth, and God be richly praised through your abundance of good works. Do not let the pressure of these hard times keep you from giving generously! Dear Christians have always accomplished the greatest things precisely in the hardest times, as could also be shown from church history. For when God lets earthly goods fall to the true Christian especially abundantly and without effort, this unfortunately usually gives the old nature in him too much nourishment and so dampens his desire to give generously when he could most easily do so; but when God keeps Christians somewhat short, the new man usually grows all the more in them through God's grace, making them all the more willing to show God that their heart does not cling to mammon. Please, dear readers, read the eighth and ninth chapters of the second letter to the Corinthians, where the holy apostle asks the dear Christians for generous offerings of love and, alongside many other powerful motives, holds this one before them as well: 'You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.' So let your hearts too be moved by the example of your Savior! If he became poor, indeed the poorest on earth, in order to make us rich, let us now gladly sacrifice at least something from our abundance, so that in our beloved new fatherland, so blessed materially but so full of spiritual dangers, the Savior's kingdom may be preserved and ever further spread. Worldly people, too, out of natural good nature, will let the bodily need of their neighbors...

(1) "This sum includes the debts that must be paid." At that time the Synod was about an eighth of its present size, and times were hard, oppressive, and expensive.

(2) Oh, that we might say exactly this with full joy again in this year as well! Would that all our institutions were "overcrowded" again!