# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S4
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 4 —

Text: 1 Tim. 4:16.

Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine; persevere in these things. For if you do this, you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

Reverend and beloved fathers and brethren in the Lord!

When Christ, shortly before His last suffering, had pleaded with His Father for His apostles: "Holy Father, keep them in Your name, those whom You have given me, that they may be one, as we are," He at once added: "I do not pray for them alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You; that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that You have sent me."

This prayer of our merciful, eternal High Priest for the oneness of His own in Him, which has already been so gloriously answered through all the centuries of His Church's existence, we see wonderfully fulfilled again today before our very eyes.

Behold a company of representatives of six church bodies who only a few years ago stood opposed to one another, indeed fought one another as enemies. Today, in these their representatives, they praise God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mouth and one accord, in order that, having strengthened and refreshed themselves together by Word and prayer, they may then, as partakers of One faith, as sons of One Church and as caretakers of One work, take counsel in brotherly concord on the means of reaching the One goal that is set and held before them all as servants and children of One Church.

O blessed, happy day! Our children and our children's children will one day still tell one another of it with joy.

If our former discord was a most sorrowful spectacle for all friends of Zion, and a sport and entertainment for the evil Enemy and all who are on his side, then our present brotherly concord is without doubt a delight to God, to all His holy angels and to all His true children, but a disheartening sight to the wicked Enemy and to all enemies of God and of His kingdom, this kingdom of truth and peace. We do not regret the struggle that we formerly fought against one another; rather we rejoice in that struggle; for it was the one right and blessed means to the true peace that has now been granted us. But if the struggle was already blessed, how much more blessed will the peace won through it now be! With joyful hope, therefore, we look into the future today. For God's Word not only says: "How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity,"