# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S52
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

52 Proceedings of the twenty-fifth convention

population is small, and strangers do not move here. Here and there we shall probably gain one or two new members. The growing children of our members are the hope of the congregation. We have a fine flock of children. Since I have been here (June 26, 1910), three Baptists have come to me of their own accord with the request for admission into our congregation, because they had found that our Church alone teaches the truth and practices godliness. At present I am instructing four former strict Catholics who have been won by our sound, Scriptural doctrine and practice." The congregation's standing is: 156 souls (an increase of 21 in two years), 85 communicant members, 25 voting members, 35 weekday pupils. Contributions for the mission treasury: $113.10. — Pastor Peay has also visited the place Big Cane, La., a few times. It is possible that we can open a mission there by means of a school.

5. Missouri.

St. Louis, Grace. Missionary James H. Doswell, who began his work at this station on March 30, 1909, had to go to Denver last autumn for the sake of his health. That was a hard blow for the station. Students from Concordia Seminary helped out in school and church. In the emergency the colored Congregationalist preacher J. E. Tice of Lake Charles, La., who had applied to us for admission, was provisionally appointed to the school at the beginning of this year, to take over all subjects except actual religious instruction. In the meantime he received doctrinal instruction from a member of the Commission for the Negro Mission, Pastor Otto Laskowski, to whom the leadership of the congregation was also entrusted. In June the candidate for the ministry Georg A. Schmidt of the theological seminary in St. Louis was called as missionary for St. Louis and Springfield. Since the last convention of the Synodical Conference the station has been moved one block farther west, and since September 1913 it has been located at the corner of 17th and Morgan Streets. Rent: 20 dollars a month. The neighborhood is inhabited by the most degraded Negroes, and the mission work is essentially "slum" work. There will never be a proper, flourishing congregation there, such as we ought to have, and could have, in St. Louis with its 45,000 Negroes, of whom only 10,000 belong to a church. The intention is therefore to found a second station farther west, in the district inhabited by thousands of Blacks that lies between Whittier, Taylor, Ashland and Hodiamont Streets. The school and Sunday school at the present station are to be continued, however. This plan will naturally require larger expenditures; but it is evidently the only right plan. — In April of this year Pastor Laskowski baptized 10 children at once. The congregation's standing is: 25 souls (increase: 8), 15 communicant members (increase: 7), 4 voting members (increase: 2),