# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S48
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48 Proceedings of the sixteenth convention

year he was sent to Atlanta, Ga., to make the attempt there to found a mission station. Atlanta is a flourishing city and is called the Chicago of the South; it has over 50,000 Negroes and therefore favorable prospects for our mission. A real beginning of the mission, however, could not be made for a long time, because it was not possible for the missionary to obtain a place; and when he thought he had found one and had rented it, it was cancelled on him under some pretext as soon as it became known that a white man here wanted to preach to the Negroes. At last he succeeded in renting an old store for $12.50 a month. Light and air enter only sparingly, but it was the best to be found. On the 19th of July the first service took place. Five hundred invitation cards had been distributed and everything done to announce the service; nevertheless only seven Negroes were present for the sermon, and only a few more at the close of the service. Since the missionary in the following week came down with the beginnings of nervous fever, Pastor Meuschke kindly declared himself ready to take over the sermon for the next Sunday evening; but since by eight o'clock only one Negro had appeared with his two children, no service was held. So the services were suspended until the missionary's recovery.

In the exercise of our mission work we had in these two years also much to contend with in the shortage in our treasury, which is why much that was necessary for the furtherance of the mission had to be left undone. To be sure, generous gifts came in on our appeal, for example for the building of individual churches and school buildings, which we gratefully acknowledge; but in return the contributions for our current expenses flowed so sparingly that we saw ourselves obliged to spend those funds for a time on the salaries of our mission workers, lest the whole mission come to a standstill. Given the oppressive state of business in the last years this is, of course, hardly surprising, and is an experience which most missions now have to lament; nevertheless more could certainly be done if there were more love for this mission and more zeal for it in all our congregations. If we want to carry on the Negro Mission with success, we must not expect to be able to do so with such small means as some other missions; for here it is a matter not only of sending and maintaining the mission workers, but also of providing and maintaining church and school property. For to do that themselves the Negroes are not only mostly too poor, they have also not yet learned to handle money, especially in such a way that the kingdom of God is built by it; nevertheless it is not to be overlooked that our Negro congregations have made a good beginning in this also. Our monthly running expenses for salaries and for the support of several students among the young Negro men and several widows of deceased mission workers amount