Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 12

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12 Proceedings of the Forty-Third Convention,

President’s Address
By the Rev. W. A. Barpter, D. D.

We lift up our eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh our
help. Our help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and
earth.

ESTEEMED BRETHREN IN CHRIST:

There was great rejoicing among confessional Lutherans when
the Synodical Conference was organized on July 10, 1872, at Mil-
waukee, Wisconsin. The overtones of this joy ring out in Walther’s
sermon preached at the opening of the first convention. Basing his
remarks on 1 Tim. 4:16 and leading up to the proposition “How im-
portant it is that we make the saving of souls the chief work of our
joint efforts in the kingdom of Christ,” Walther said: “When Christ
immediately before His last suffering prayed to His Father for His
Apostles: ‘I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.’ He
added: ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on Me through their word, that they all may be one,
as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one
in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.’

“This prayer of our merciful, eternal High Priest for the one-
ness of His own in Him, which was realized so gloriously through-
out the centuries of the existence of the church, we today again
see wonderfully fulfilled before our very eyes.

“Behold, a group of representatives of six church bodies, which
only a few years ago stood in opposition to one another, which, as
a matter of fact, were fighting one another as enemies — behold,
they praise today through their representatives with one mouth
God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that, having
strengthened themselves by Word and prayer, they might as com-
panions in one faith, as sons of one church, and as supporters of
the one Word, consider in brotherly harmony ways and means to
reach the one goal placed before them as ministers and children
of one church.

“O blessed, happy day! Our children and children’s children
will speak of it with joy in years to come.”

This union was not man-made. It was not a child of ex-
pediency. It was the work of the Holy Spirit, and the organization
itself was merely the manifestation of the inner unity existing
among the six Lutheran synods. an

Those were the days when the lovers of confessional Lu-
theranism longed to be associated together. The movement to get
together was stimulated in 1855, when the “Definite Platform” with
its denial of several vital articles of the Augsburg Confession ap-
peared. This prompted Walther to issue a call for free conferences
in 1856. For four years men of different Lutheran groups met to
discuss articles of the Augsburg Confession and thus advance the
cause of confessional Lutheranism. In 1864, when the General
Synod received into membership the Franckean Synod, which had
abandoned the Augustana entirely, the delegates of the Pennsyl-
vania Ministerium left the convention. When, in 1866, this same
group severed its relations with the General Synod and extended