# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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the success can be very small, and therefore not to believe that the future of our church hangs on this work; nothing else must drive us to the fulfilment of this task than love of God and of the neighbor and obedience to His command.

Thesis 2 reads: "The church within the Synodical Conference [*Synodal⸗Conferenz*] is relieved of such duty neither on the ground

a. that it has to care for its German and Scandinavian fellow believers, for it is to do the one thing and not leave the other undone; nor on the ground

b. that other church bodies care sufficiently for the English-speaking population; for the church of the pure Word can never be content that fragments of saving truth are preached by others, when it can offer the whole counsel of God unto salvation; nor on the ground

c. that false believers have already taken possession of the field and it would therefore be intruding into another's office with its activity in English; for although it recognizes the churchly rights of the existing congregations despite their false belief, the rights of the pastors called by them nevertheless do not extend beyond the circle of those who call them, while everything still standing outside their federation must be regarded as open territory for us; nor, finally, on the ground

d. that certain other associations of Christians calling themselves Lutheran exist, to whom it would be closer at hand to carry on the church's work in the English language; for we dare not leave it to them, since they partly bring false doctrine to the people, partly treat pure doctrine with slight regard, and partly pursue the work in a highly slack manner."

Section a of this thesis is directed against the objection that we Germans and Scandinavians have enough to do for ourselves, and that the English should therefore also look after themselves. Against this the rule holds: one should do the one thing and not leave the other undone. The history of the spread of the Church can teach us in this respect too how it has always pleased God to lead a people that sat in darkness, through another with a different language, to the light of the Gospel. He sent the Gospel to the Greeks through the Jews, to the Germans through the English, to the Norwegians through the Germans. He always used just those who, through His mercy, already had the treasure, to convey it through them to those who did not yet have it. So now in America the Germans and Scandinavians, who have the treasure of pure doctrine, have the duty to bring it to their English-speaking fellow inhabitants of the same land. That the objection, "One has enough to do in one's own house and therefore cannot concern oneself with the English neighbors," counts for nothing, one also sees quite clearly in the conduct of the holy apostles. If anyone, they would have had, so to speak, to work for and among the Jews alone, if