# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

"Dear Brothers and Sisters!

"For fifty years now we, the members in the Negro Mission, have been the recipients of your gifts, the objects of your love and sacrifices. And now that we are celebrating our golden jubilee, we cannot refrain from thanking you heartily that you have supported us during these fifty years and borne our burdens. We thank you that you began the mission among our people and brought us the true Gospel, which instructs us unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. We believe that this work was not undertaken thoughtlessly, but that you, who have the Gospel in its purity and truth, were moved to it by the Lord, and that your hearts were full of love for the children of Ham, freed from bodily slavery, who lay in spiritual ignorance and darkness, went on their way in superstition and unbelief, and that you therefore wished to show them the way to salvation. That this was your motive is evident from the fact that you have carried on the mission among the Negroes these many years with unceasing devotion and zeal. We are not unmindful of the labor and sacrifices it has cost to carry on this great work. And how can we in the Negro Mission now repay all your benefactions? We are obliged to you in deepest gratitude, and we would like, if we could, to repay you in some way for what you have done for us. But since we have no means for it, we ask the Lord, to whom heaven and earth belong, to shower you abundantly with his blessing, in things bodily as in things spiritual.

"We thank you for the white workers whom you have placed in our mission fields. These men have worked with great zeal to bring the Word of God to the Negroes in its purity and truth. Many of them have spent their whole life in this work. This was no small sacrifice on their part, for they were in fact shut out from association with their own people.

"Again, it was a great sacrifice on the part of the white congregations, who left their own pulpits empty and sent us practiced, God-fearing men whom they could have used in their own service. For these spiritual and bodily sacrifices we thank you.

"And what is the result of your labor among us? We hear many express themselves thus: 'Had the Evangelical Lutheran *Synodalkonferenz* [Synodical Conference] not taken up the cause of our people, I and many others of my fellow countrymen would not have been saved.' So many souls who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, went on their way in ignorance and superstition, have come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through the pure Word of God that you have brought us.

"The full results of your labor will not be revealed in this world; but this we know, that he who has promised that his Word shall not return to him void, but accomplish that whereunto he sends it, has abundantly blessed the preaching of the Gospel among the Negroes.

"The eyes of so many blind have been opened and have seen a great light. We thank you that you have brought us this light."

Another of our colored pastors, John Alston, shows his Lutheran fellow countrymen how they are to prove their gratitude by deed. He calls out to them: