# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

20 Proceedings of the eighteenth convention

we say nevertheless: Even a Sunday school well arranged in every respect cannot suffice a Christian head of household for what he is to give his children. We readily concede that through the power of God's Word a child can come in the Sunday school also to the point of being a Christian, and later a Christian rich in knowledge. We do not fail to recognize the blessing which the Sunday school has brought about here and there. But it is not for us to decide what the Holy Spirit can accomplish through the power of the Word; we must reflect on what we can do for the Christian education of our children, and for that the Sunday school is not enough. Parents who, from laziness or other reasons, want to be content with what the Sunday school offers cannot justify themselves by the fact that in individual cases the Sunday school has achieved fine results.

It is evident: one hour of religion a week is not enough for a father to bring up his children, according to the apostle's admonition, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Whoever wants to straighten a crooked tree does not expect it to help if he ties it to a stake for an hour once a week; rather he leaves it tied the whole week through, and for years besides. What would a father say if one made him the proposal that he should have his child given arithmetic lessons only once a week for an hour or half an hour, since that would fully suffice for his business training? He would laugh at such a proposal as foolish. But for religious instruction, which is infinitely more important and more difficult than all secular instruction, the smallest measure is supposed to suffice!

Here the Calvinistic spirit shows itself plainly, which despises the external Word and therefore at bottom considers thorough, sustained religious instruction superfluous. The "Spirit," the "inner light," works conversion. Therefore the Sunday school is entirely sufficient for the enthusiast. The Lutheran is of a different mind in this. He knows quite well that by the mere memorizing of catechism text, Bible verses and hymn verses his child is not converted; but he also knows that the Word of God is the only means through which the Holy Spirit wills to work. In this conviction he demands good Christian instruction for his child, and only the greatest possible measure of it satisfies him.

One objects that the Sunday school, to be sure, is not sufficient, but that, supported by home instruction and combined with it, the matter of the Sunday school stands differently. Quite apart from the fact that the latter too is not made unnecessary by the congregational school, we answer only by pointing out that precisely the parents who are content with the Sunday school then also during the week do not at all, or not to any worthwhile extent, [concern themselves] with the instruction of their children in God's Word [sentence continues on the next page]