# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S41
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 41

[Christ] is the Savior of all men and has given himself for all for redemption, so that the heart of his Christians is to be filled with love for all men.

A third civic virtue is the regard for the rights of the neighbor. On this virtue the possibility of the republican form of government actually rests, namely that to the individual citizen the highest measure of rights remain granted that can in any way be reconciled with the welfare of the neighbor and with an orderly commonwealth. The less the rights of the individual are restricted, the greater the room for play left to personal liberty, the more necessary it is, however, that everyone take due regard of the rights of the neighbor, because an overstepping of the bounds makes a restriction of liberty necessary. If we look at the prevailing morality in this respect, which also governs state school education, we see plainly that it leaves the rights of the neighbor untouched only just so far as they are not a hindrance to ourselves. In business life especially this principle comes to light. While the country sighs under the pressure of monopolies and trusts, only a few recognize that the striving for monopolization in all branches of trade rests solely on sinful selfishness. Many find nothing wrong in it when it is said: The businessman cannot exist today without cheating. While in trade it is evidently right that the seller serve his customers honestly, the reverse order increasingly asserts itself, and the principle is set up: The buyer has the duty to look out that he not be cheated. In short, the striving in general goes toward this, that one goes as far as possible in infringement of the rights of the neighbor, whether with right or with a semblance of right.

How does Christian education in the congregational school stand toward this? It says with St. Paul, Phil. 2:4: "Let each look not to his own, but to that which is another's." And why? Because "each should be of the mind that Jesus Christ also had," who for our sake humbled himself to the utmost and emptied himself of his divine majesty, v. 5. This virtue too is placed on the right ground, on Christ. Through the Gospel the congregational school brings it about that the free will arises, for love's sake, to renounce one's own right and to spend one's life in the service of the neighbor. The Christian congregational school points to 1 Cor. 10:24: "Let no one seek what is his own, but each that of the other." Although this sentence in its context deals first of all with regard for the weak in the use of Christian liberty, it contains evidently the generally valid rule that the Christian yield especially to the weak, and so much the more regard their rights.

From this the correctness of the assertion can be shown to every unprejudiced Christian that the Christian congregational school is the only