# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1898_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1898. 39

Business Proceedings.

I. Negro Mission. [*Negermiſſion*]

The Commission for the Negro Mission presented the following report on its activity in the past two years to the Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*]:

Eleventh Report of the Commission for the Negro Mission of the "Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America."
(For the period from August 1896 to July 1898.)

May we be permitted to attach the report on the work of our Negro Mission in the last two years, which we have to lay before the Reverend Synodical Conference at this convention, to the words of our Savior where he says in Matt. 13: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."

By the kingdom of heaven in these words the Savior means his believers, that is, the holy Christian church, or the congregation of the men of God, who, born again through faith in Jesus, are alone among all people on earth fit and willing to do good works, especially such as bring people to Christ and to their salvation.

Our words of parable stand in the series of seven parables in which the Savior paints before our eyes the form of his kingdom on earth from its founding to its completion on the last day; five of them describe the planting of his church, its wonderful spread, its outwardly small appearance, offensive to the world, and its hidden, inner power and glory. These are the parables of the seed on four kinds of soil, of the wheat and the tares, of a net with good and bad fish, of the mustard seed and of the leaven. With the last two parables, of the treasure in the field and the pearl of the merchant, he points to the wonderful glory and blessedness of those people who are members of his kingdom of heaven. Through all seven parables, however, runs a characteristic trait: namely, the outward form of the kingdom of heaven is, in the eyes of reason and the world, unremarkable, small, indeed contemptible. Its glory is invisible and hidden, plain only to the enlightened eye of faith. For as long as the church of Christ has its lodging in the realm of the prince of this world, it also bears the form of its Master in the state of humiliation. As the world and reason scornfully judged of him: "He hath no form nor comeliness that we should desire him" — the believing John, on the other hand, in divine enlightenment, joyfully cried out: "We beheld his glory, the