# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S61
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 61

oldest and largest station in this city also outwardly in condition, so that the highly praised name of our dear Savior may be glorified thereby. The poor Negro congregation itself has, to our shame, already collected $1000.00 for the new building. But we now let the detailed reports follow and ask the dear readers to read them attentively; it will redound to their blessing and to the blessing of the mission.

Our dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, after the work of redemption accomplished for all people and before his glorious ascension, gave to his apostles, and in them to his Church of all times, the great mission command: "Go ye into all the world and teach all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." That was a majestic command of an equally majestic King. These poor disciples were to subject all the nations of the world to him, to make them his disciples and citizens of his kingdom; without sword or other earthly weapons, solely through the preaching of peace of the Gospel. Such a command could be given only by an almighty King; such a command could be carried out only under his almighty protection and through his almighty working. Therefore he also adds the promise: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

In obedience to this command the apostles went out and carried it out as long as they lived. But they did not live until the end of the world. Therefore this command had to go on through the whole of Christendom as long as the world stands. This command, to carry on mission among all the peoples of the earth, applies also to our orthodox Evangelical Lutheran Church of this distant Western land, the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] of North America. Among these "all nations," among whom mission is to be done, belong also the poor, in part still heathen, ignorant Negroes of this country. Yes, toward them in particular we have a quite special obligation; for it was our whites, so-called Christians, whose greed brought this Negro people hither into this land. God undoubtedly permitted this to happen so that they might come here under the sound of the Gospel. For while other church bodies bring the Gospel to the Negro peoples in Africa, many thousands of miles away over land and sea, God has laid the Negroes here at our door like a poor Lazarus, that we might take pity on their spiritual need, and has promised us to be with us also in this mission work with his grace, protection and assistance. The venerable Synodical Conference recognized this too, and therefore in the year 1877, during its convention in Fort Wayne, Ind., made the resolution, "a heathen mission, and indeed for the present among the heathen or at least religiously neglected and forsaken Negroes