# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1922_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1922. 33

This: As in our white congregations, unfortunately, some of those who at their confirmation vow loyalty to the Savior and the church unto death nevertheless become unfaithful and fall away again, so also in our Negro congregations. And yet here too, to the honor of God and the praise of the Gospel, Christian steadfastness and faithfulness can and must be spoken of and praised. The writer of this once heard how one of our missionaries, before a Negro assembly at a new mission place, said approximately the following: I am pastor of a Lutheran Negro congregation of nearly 400 souls. If you were to go to these people, show a pistol, and say to them: You must leave the Lutheran Church or I shoot, they would answer: "Shoot!"

A girl in New Orleans attended St. Paul's School there. Her father was a preacher in a sectarian church. Through the religious instruction she came to the realization that the Lutheran Church proclaims God's Word purely and clearly. She took part in the confirmation instruction and wanted to be confirmed. Her father raised objection to this and finally locked her in a dark room and gave her nothing but bread and water. In doing so he continued his attempts to show her that the Lutheran Church teaches falsely, in order to turn her from her intention. Patiently the girl let this persecution come upon her. She was finally released and then, with the other confirmands on the day of confirmation, knelt down at the altar of the Lord and vowed with a glad heart and joyful lips lifelong faithfulness. She is now a grown woman. Not only she, but also her father and other members of the family are good members of our church.

In Alabama twin girls — Mary and Sara McCants — were confirmed. After confirmation they left the mission school — they were already 19 years old — and went home. Their home was fifteen miles away. There the Lutheran church was quite unknown. They hung up their confirmation certificates in the parental log cabin and showed them to their visitors with visible joy. Relatives and acquaintances of false belief now did their best to persuade the two girls to turn their backs on the Lutheran Church. But they looked at their confirmation certificates and remembered their vow and stood firm. Indeed, after a few days they built benches for a Lutheran Sunday school, which they opened in an old, abandoned log cabin on the plantation. Almost the whole kin and acquaintance of the twins has become Lutheran.

In another place the father of a family died. He and his family had been won some years before through the service of one of our missionaries. The widow is now alone with a house full of small children. Then the wife of the rich plantation owner comes,