# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1864_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

22 Our Local Conferences.

the correct insight thus gained, one becomes only the more surely glad; into the whole there comes security and firmness. And only now, when it comes to the discussion of the right way of treating the text, how welcome is every apt pointer toward a precise exposition, and a correct, subject-appropriate presentation of the doctrine given in the text! How it often becomes clear to one all at once, in what way the necessary unity can best be brought into the sermon! What a rich relation of the text to the circumstances of the congregations, and to the conditions of this our most recently afflicted, evil time, emerges there! With satisfaction one leaves the conference, with joy one returns home and sets about working out one's sermon; but the congregations soon feel the rich blessing of such discussions at the conferences, and are glad to see their pastor go there, and he himself, the faithful pastor, certainly does not miss the next time, if it is at all possible for him to come; courageously he presses through every hindrance; confidently he tramples down all the temptations that flesh and the devil prepare for him, and hastens to the place where he can fetch himself so great, practical, and immediately usable a gain; the conferences are attended ever more diligently; the discussion becomes ever livelier and richer in content, the blessing ever greater. — Should this not incite to imitation, indeed to quite general emulation? We happy Lutherans, we know, by God's grace, and believe in full earnest, that through our pure evangelical preaching we make blessed those who hear us; we know, believe, and confess that pure and good preaching — for the latter, too, must indeed not be lacking, if we wish confidently to expect a truly fruitful result from our sermons — is the fairest ornament of the church, and that, as our motto says, nothing keeps people more attached to the Church than good preaching. This we know at a time when all the powers of hell are let loose, and the devil, who knows that only a little time is left him, is exerting every effort, and the whole current of the spirit of the age is quite properly bent on leading Christians, especially the poor young people, out of the churches, and entangling them ever more in the nature of this world, and dragging them down into eternal ruin. Should we not, then, apply double diligence, and joyfully seize every means offered for this, so that, as far as it lies with us, our sermons may indeed be such good sermons as keep people attached to the Church? Therefore, up, and let us also faithfully make full use of our Local Conferences, in the manner indicated and already tested, for this godly purpose. Success will soon teach that this is an excellent way to make our conferences attended with real diligence, to increase their blessing, and thoroughly to check their flagging and falling asleep.

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