# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1863_S279
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Report of the Sixth Regular Synodical Convention of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church.  279

room for anxious care, but it will become our delight and joy to offer the Lord our gifts.

Finally I will name drunkenness and dancing, gambling, and nightly carousing as very common among the young people in several congregations. These sins always have their root in the levity and unbelief of the heart, and can be properly beaten down and put to death only through a change of heart; but the greater the offense which they give both to those within the congregations and to those outside the congregation, the more zealously ought we to strive to prevent such excesses and avoid giving offense. That these sins would not be so common among us, were it not that the two aforementioned chief sins are so common, is self-evident.

These are some of the enemies of whom I said that we have to fight them in our midst. If this is to happen, everything first depends on the Word of God being held in honor and esteem among us. The chief endeavor of our fellowship must therefore be, first of all, to obtain more teachers, both for our overcrowded congregations and for so many congregations without a preacher.

A matter for the earnest consideration of the honored Synod will accordingly be our teaching institution and its successful development. Both the director of the institution and the building committee will present their reports. Here only this much: since the needs of the school required an increase in the teaching staff, the church council last fall sent a call to the candidate of theology Chr. Bruun in Norway as a third teacher. As soon as the church council was informed that Mr. Bruun did not wish to accept the call, it resolved to send a provisional call to one of our oldest students in St. Louis, Mr. W. Jacobsen, but at the same time called upon applicants in Norway to apply for the position.

As far as I know, no new congregations have formed within the bounds of our synodical district in the past year; on the other hand, the congregations at Big Cano and at Hesper in Iowa, and then that at Richland together with its branches in Minnesota, have constituted themselves as independent congregations and have called preachers from Norway. The congregation at North Prairie, Minn., too, has constituted itself an independent congregation, but would prefer, like the one at Lemonweir, Wisc., a preacher trained here.

Since the last Synod no congregation has sought admission into our synodical body; on the other hand, according to the statement of Pastor A. C. Preus, two congregations in Lee Co., Ill., which both belonged to our Synod, have driven him out on the ground of the doctrine on slavery, and have called Pastor C. J. Pedersen of Chicago, of the Augustana Synod, as their preacher. Since Pastor A. C. Preus is himself present, he will be able to