# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 43

For God offers himself richly and extends his hand and gives besides what belongs to it. If we despise it, we have already our judgment with the people of Israel, of whom Isaiah says, chap. 65:2: 'I have held out my hand all the day to an unbelieving people, who resist me.' And Prov. 1:26: 'I have held out my hand, and no one would look; you have despised all my counsel; very well, then I will laugh at you in your ruin and mock when your calamity comes upon you,' etc. Let us beware of that. See, for example, what great diligence King Solomon applied in this; how he took up the cause of the young folk, so that among his royal business he also made a book for the young folk, which is called Proverbiorum (Proverbs)! And Christ himself, how he draws the little children to himself! How diligently he commends them to us and praises also the angels who wait upon them, Matt. 18:2 ff., that he may show us what a great service it is where one brings up the young folk well; and again, how dreadfully he is angry when one offends them and lets them be ruined!" (St. Louis Edition, X, 479 f.)

And finally Comenius writes: "Carry on this work, you priests, faithful servants of Jesus Christ, and drive out evil with the two-edged sword entrusted to you, with the sword of the Word. For to this you are appointed, to pluck out evil, to break, to destroy and to ruin, but the good to build and to plant, Jer. 1:10, Ps. 101:5, Rom. 13:4 and elsewhere. Now you have come to the insight that one can resist evil in the human race with the best success only if one resists it in the first period of life; that the little trees which are to last for eternity are best obtained by planting and rearing new saplings; that then with the best success a Zion can be built up in place of Babylon, if the living stones of God, the young, are early broken, hewn, smoothed and fitted into the heavenly building. If we therefore want well-ordered and flourishing churches and states and households, then let us above all order the schools and bring them to bloom, that they may become true and living nurseries of men, nursery-schools of churches, states and households. Thus first shall we reach our goal, in no other way ever." (Great Didactic [Gr. Unterr. Lehre], p. 21 f.)