# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1888_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1888. 37

not always of such a kind that this distrust would be removed by it. That nevertheless we have not merely held our own but, especially in the most recent time, can record an unmistakable progress is God's grace. The small congregation numbers 65 souls, among them 22 communicant members. The average church attendance is 58 persons. The Sunday school numbers 62, the weekday school 94 pupils — an increase of 30 souls, 6 communicant members and 23 hearers since our last report. Also in this time several, as we may hope, have been transferred by a blessed death into the triumphant church.

II. New Orleans, Louisiana.

Here our mission has a large, hopeful field with, up to now, four stations. The oldest is the

Mount Zion Station, which was begun in 1878 in the old "Sailors' Home," taken over in 1880 by its present missionary, Pastor Bakke, and in December 1882 moved to its present location on Franklin Street. Here in the autumn of 1886 50 new school benches had to be procured and the church divided by a partition into two parts, in order to separate a schoolroom from the actual church space. The small congregation was afflicted in the summer of 1886 by four deaths following one another very quickly. A woman, an earnest Christian, fell down suddenly dead after she had received the Holy Supper in church the evening before and afterward, in the presence of several members, had thanked God that he had brought her to the Lutheran church. Hardly had she been buried when a young man died. He had been one of our first pupils already in the "Sailors' Home." One often heard him, on his errands about the city as an errand boy, sing the beautiful Lutheran hymns. After finishing his day's work he never failed to go to his old grandmother to read her something from the Bible, to sing a hymn and to say the evening prayer. Through him all his nearest relatives have been won for our church. He drowned while bathing. While his body was still being searched for, word came that a 14-year-old pupil of the Mount Zion school and confirmand had been murdered. He too had led a Christian life up to his sudden death. Almost at the same time a pupil of the St. Paul's school, who was likewise soon to be confirmed, had drowned while bathing. All these had come to know the way of life with us, and we may hope that through our poor service they have been gathered into the heavenly barns. Often our dear missionaries, here and at other stations, have also reported to us in the "Missions-Taube" [Mission Dove, the mission periodical] how they have instructed young and old Christians who formerly lived in ignorance and sins, from God's Word and finally