Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1911 · 28th Convention, St. Louis, Nummer 1 › Page 204

LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1911, Page 204

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204 Verhandlungen der 28. Allgemeinen oder

glory is but a funeral procession marching silently behind the sable
banner of death. We understand, and we sink beneath, the pathos
of the words of Israel's holy seer of old: "All flesh is as grass, and
all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth."

We buried Walther. Did we really bury Walther? If this
cosmopolitan assembly of Lutherans proves anything regarding him,
it proves that Walther is not dead. All that we did twenty-four
years ago was to place in the Creator's keeping what was perishable
of our beloved teacher and leader. And during the past quarter of
a century there have faded from our memories those things which are
properly counted the evanescences also in a great man's life. But
in no other sense has Walther been buried, nor did we intend to bury
him. His influence has been different in origin and quality from that
which purely secular prestige, or power, or pelf are able to command.
It has continued unabated since his eyes were closed in death; yea, it
has gathered momentum with the advance of years. The past twenty-
four years have furnished additional evidence to what was plain to un-
biased minds long ago, viz., that Walther's work contains the seeds
of immortality: he chose his aims and ends from, he secured his
results by means of, the imperishable Word of God. We rejoice in
the unmistakable testimony of this day that Walther still lives;
and we trust that his work shall abide, a present and influential
factor in the activities of the Lutheran Church.

The age of Walther, like ours, was charged with critical doubt,
skepticism, and open denial of the Holy Scriptures as the sole,
authentic, and sufficient norm of Christian doctrine and life. Wal-
ther rose to challenge the vaunted claims of a theological science
which is neither theology nor science. In his estimate the theologian
has failed in the Abc of his profession who considers it his primary
task to construct a Bible rather than to teach the Bible; to frame a
cunning system of revealed truth rather than to proclaim the entire
counsel of God for man's salvation, no matter whether we are able
to discover the harmony of this plan or not. Walther led men to an
appreciation of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God.
The results which have attended our activity on the basis adopted by
him are not such that we should have to call for a revision.

Walther's age, like ours, was swayed by synergism. Overtly
and covertly there was injected into the teaching how the individual
sinner is saved a human element, which represents salvation as a
cooperative activity on the part of the Holy Spirit and the sinner,
and in the last analysis makes salvation the sinner's personal merit.
It was Walther's mission to declare the genuineness and exclusiveness
of divine grace in the work of saving a sinner, — grace in the in-
ception of saving faith, grace in its nurture, grace at its consum-

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204 Proceedings of the 28th General or

glory is but a funeral procession marching silently behind the sable
banner of death. We understand, and we sink beneath, the pathos
of the words of Israel's holy seer of old: "All flesh is as grass, and
all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth."

We buried Walther. Did we really bury Walther? If this
cosmopolitan assembly of Lutherans proves anything regarding him,
it proves that Walther is not dead. All that we did twenty-four
years ago was to place in the Creator's keeping what was perishable
of our beloved teacher and leader. And during the past quarter of
a century there have faded from our memories those things which are
properly counted the evanescences also in a great man's life. But
in no other sense has Walther been buried, nor did we intend to bury
him. His influence has been different in origin and quality from that
which purely secular prestige, or power, or pelf are able to command.
It has continued unabated since his eyes were closed in death; yea, it
has gathered momentum with the advance of years. The past twenty-
four years have furnished additional evidence to what was plain to un-
biased minds long ago, viz., that Walther's work contains the seeds
of immortality: he chose his aims and ends from, he secured his
results by means of, the imperishable Word of God. We rejoice in
the unmistakable testimony of this day that Walther still lives;
and we trust that his work shall abide, a present and influential
factor in the activities of the Lutheran Church.

The age of Walther, like ours, was charged with critical doubt,
skepticism, and open denial of the Holy Scriptures as the sole,
authentic, and sufficient norm of Christian doctrine and life. Wal-
ther rose to challenge the vaunted claims of a theological science
which is neither theology nor science. In his estimate the theologian
has failed in the Abc of his profession who considers it his primary
task to construct a Bible rather than to teach the Bible; to frame a
cunning system of revealed truth rather than to proclaim the entire
counsel of God for man's salvation, no matter whether we are able
to discover the harmony of this plan or not. Walther led men to an
appreciation of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God.
The results which have attended our activity on the basis adopted by
him are not such that we should have to call for a revision.

Walther's age, like ours, was swayed by synergism. Overtly
and covertly there was injected into the teaching how the individual
sinner is saved a human element, which represents salvation as a
cooperative activity on the part of the Holy Spirit and the sinner,
and in the last analysis makes salvation the sinner's personal merit.
It was Walther's mission to declare the genuineness and exclusiveness
of divine grace in the work of saving a sinner, — grace in the in-
ception of saving faith, grace in its nurture, grace at its consum-