# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the eighteenth convention

Business Proceedings.

I. Negro Mission.

As representative of the Commission for the Negro Mission [*Negermiſſion*, the period's term], Pastor O. Hanser read the following report:

Report of the Commission for the Negro Mission from August 1898 to August 1900.

"Do you not say: There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you: Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are already white for harvest; and he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying is true: One sows, and another reaps." (John 4:35-37.)

No more glorious and fitting word of God do we know to place at the head of our mission report, which we now have to render to the Reverend Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] on the two years' activity in our Negro Mission. For this time we may report on the fulfillment of the great promise of this text, and on the great joy of the reapers over a rich harvest, after we have rendered our reports for a series of years with sighs.

Our dear Savior speaks in the words cited, under the image of the earthly sowing and temporal harvest, of the spiritual sowing of his Word in the hearts of men and of the heavenly harvest in blessed eternity. By them he wishes to set before our eyes the necessary haste for the harvest work, as well as the certainty of a rich harvest, and also the glorious reward of joy for this work, to awaken us to new diligence and zeal for the work of his sowing and harvest, that is, for the extension of his kingdom, for the holy mission. "Do you not say yourselves," he says: "There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest?" These words are spoken proverbially. Their meaning is this: If there are still four months' time until harvest, then there is indeed no haste for the work. The seed is sown. There is nothing more to do; nothing is neglected or lost if we still rest and wait. But it is not so with the spiritual sowing and harvest of Christ. Therefore he continues: "Behold, I say to you: Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are already white for harvest. . . . For here the saying is true: One sows, and another reaps," the