# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S77
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of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 77

at the same time some suitable building sites for the building of a chapel. But the
opening of this station would naturally be connected with incomparably greater costs
than that of our third, where we were able to buy a valuable church property
for only $600. The building site alone would come here to
$800-1000, a chapel, however simple, to about $12-1500. The
further expenses connected with it for furnishing, cisterns,
fences, etc., would bring the whole to at least $3000, besides
the appointment of a teacher of its own, who without doubt would become necessary already in the first
months after the opening of the school. May it please the Reverend
Synodical Conference to give its joyful consent to this desirable extension of our
mission work in this city, where the harvest is so great and ripe,
and may it awaken the hearts of our dear Christians
to hasten to our help with ever richer gifts for its execution!
May God in his grace grant it!

In the name and by commission of the Commission of the Ev. Luth. Synodical
Conference for the Negro Mission

St. Louis, 1 August 1886. C. J. Otto Hanser.

This report was then discussed point by point and the following
resolutions were adopted:

1. Resolved, that the mission in Meherrin, Lunenburg Co., Va.,
be discontinued by recall of the missionary.

The reason for this is that Meherrin is not such a place where, according to
the regulations of the Synodical Conference, mission among the Negroes
should be carried on. The great majority of the Negroes living there
already belong to other church fellowships. Therefore our preachers do
not belong there at all. We were deceived earlier by false representations
by Negroes, in that it was pretended to us that many
Negroes near Meherrin were still without a church. The Negroes really wanted only
to obtain a school through us, but to remain Baptists in doing so. The very
small little flock of Negroes which our station shows can well be visited here and
there once by a preacher and served with Word and Sacrament,
and must otherwise content itself with house worship.
Yes, if these Negroes by preference belong to the Lutheran Church, they
will move to such regions where they again have a Lutheran church and
school; as indeed one Negro also expressed himself to the effect that
he would rather move away than be without preaching of the divine Word.

2. Resolved, that the Commission for the Negro Mission is hereby empowered
to begin first a new station in New Orleans and
as soon as practicable to enlarge the largest school into a two-class one.

To this resolution the Synodical Conference was compelled by the
fact that annually in all our Negro schools in New Orleans there