The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1915, Page 91

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

The Lutheran Pioneer.

91

19th chapter of Luke, verses 11 to 27, and for his
theme the question: “When Shall We Prove Our-
selves. Faithful and Diligent Servants of Our Lord?”
IIe made an‘earnest and eloquent appeal to his
hearers to accept Jesus in faith as their King, to
diligently trade with the pound intrusted to them
by their Lord, and to joyfully look forward to the
gracious reward promised them in the life to come.

On Thursday evening the first open session was
held. At this session the Rey. A. O. Friedrich, of
Mount Zion, read an essay on the timely subject,
“Worldliness of To-day.” The essayist pointed out
the dangers of worldliness from many phases, par-

edifice was comfortably taken, there being more
than two hundred persons attending. There were
two speakers, the Rev. Wilfred Tervalon, of Man-
sura, and the Rev. Ed. Schmidt, of St. Paul’s
Church. ‘The first speaker took his text from the
first chapter of Romans, the 17th verse, and directed
his attentive listeners to the doctrine of justifica-
tion by faith, restored to us by God through Luther,
as the chief blessing of the Reformation. He pointed
out that this is the doctrine by which the Church
must stand or fall, and that the fact that we now
bask in the sunshine of this doctrine should incite
us to give unbounded thanks to God.

Members of Luther Conference, New Orleans.

ticularly when, as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it en-
deavors to insinuate itself into the Church of God.

At the second open session, on Friday evening,
the Rev. Eugene Berger read an essay entitled,
“Faith Cure.” The essayist combated the false
claims of faith-curists by means of concise and illu-
minating passages of Holy Writ. This paper elicited
much discussion, several of the brethren relating in-
cidents having come under their own observation
to prove the folly of much that is regarded as
“faith cure.” ; 5

All of the open sessions were comparatively well
attended, but the service of Sunday evening, the
joint Reformation service, easily had the banner
attendance. ‘The seating capacity of the sacred «

The Rey. Schmidt, the second speaker, based
his address on the 103d Psalm, the second verse.
The keynote of his truly eloquent address was, that,
while we have not to-day a Luther in our midst,
we have the weapon with which he so valiantly -
fought, the precious Word of God, and that we
should betoken our gratitude to God for this gift
of His Word in our life and in our church activity.

The Conference Choir, consisting of the pas-
tors and teachers of Luther Conference, under the
directorship of Teacher Wm. B. Seeberry, of
St. Paul’s, rendered three beautiful anthems, “The
Close of Day,” “Night’s Shadows Falling,’ and
“Wie Wohl Ist Mir, O Freund der Seelen.”

' Private sessions were held by the brethren Fri-