USA > Ohio > Richland County > Mansfield > A history of the Wittenberg Synod of the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1847-1916 > Part 8
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In its session at Bucyrus, O., in its Fourth Annual Synodical Sunday-school Convention in 1878, held
*Min. 1881, p. 28.
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conjointly with the Synod, the Committee on resolu- tions said, "That the Sunday-school should pay special attention to the converted and the unconverted, and to young and old, and that the sword of its power is the Word of the living God ; that it is possible for our Sunday-schools to secure a larger number of efficient teachers, more earnest scholars of all ages, a more general circulation of our own Sunday-school litera- ture, and more. and better work for Jesus; that all Sunday-school workers should seek to become thoroughly consecrated to, and qualified for, the work before them."*
The President of Synod in his report of 1878, re- lating to the state of religion in the congregations, said, "The Sunday-school work of the Synod is being pushed forward vigorously, and some of the very best schools in all the Church are to be found within this Synod."ยก
Looking backward and forward, this Synod, as these statements fully indicate, has not been slow to take hold and to move forward in all lines of Sun- day-school work. It has stood for the best things in every department of the Church and School. It has recognized the fact that the first necessity of true progress is to retain the good things shown to be best by past experience, while it reaches forward to adopt everything new and wise in work and method; such as memorizing the choicest portions of Scripture and so turning the student to the Word itself, by the method of teaching : by continual reference to parallel
*Min. 1878, p. 17.
+Min. 1878, p. 29.
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passages : the training of the teacher, - for the teacher makes the school; and the graded system of lesson for the main school.
It has aimed to secure the attendance of the whole church membership on the Sunday-school session, and also to turn the whole Sunday-school into the Church for the hour of worship.
"Whate'er of good the old-time had Remains to make our own time glad."
In 1874 a special column showing the attendance of the church membership in the Sunday-school was placed in the Parochial table, and was retained for five years and then discontinued, though the results registered a marked improvement toward the end sought.
The Young People
One of the most phenomenal of the religious activities of these modern times has been the Young People's movement. It arose from a strong and general conviction of the great lack of religious training in the home and the neglect of the teaching function in the churches. It had its origin in New England in 1881, and in a short decade it is safe to say that it had made its way into nearly every Protestant denomination in the land. It began in this short time also to strengthen and expand by means of District, State and Nation-wide organizations. Although because of the historic usages and methods peculiar to our Lutheran Churches, the movement did not take as strong hold nor become as general among us as in some denominations, yet, very large numbers of our congregations organized these societies in the
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identical form in which they first appeared. It soon became evident that the tendencies with these organi- zations, though in the main wholesome and con- structive, religiously, were stronger toward the inter- denominational spirit, than toward the development of a churchly and strongly loyal religious life. There is a proper denominational spirit that is distinct from a narrow sectarianism. This is necessary to a vig- orous development of the spiritual life. It was only natural that this spirit should be neglected in the train- ing afforded by these inter-denominational societies. Hence, in a short time, each denomination sought to form on the basis of the elementary principles of the new movement, young people's societies of the de- nominational type. and so to introduce into their activities such work and such studies as taught and trained the young people more carefully into the in- telligent, loyal and efficient membership in their home church without cutting them off necessarily from the benefits of inter-denominational fellowship. The aim and purpose was to secure a stronger and more vig- orous Christian manhood and womanhood. The main features of the first movement were, however, to be conserved, viz .: that of religious training by active service, and a better religious education. Wittenberg Synod made its first official recognition of this new movement at its convention in Mansfield in 1889 by the following resolution: ( Minutes. p. 37).
"Resolved, That we regard with favor the organization of young people's societies of Christian Endeavor in our Churches as an aid to the spiritual work of the pastor. as also a most helpful assistance both to their growth in Grace and in Christian confidence and ability on the part of the
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younger members of our Churches in the exercise of their public religious duties."
Two years later, Synod by motion of one of our most intelligent and useful laymen, passed the follow- ing resolution : ( Minutes, p. 22).
"Resolved, First, that Wittenberg Synod recommend an amended form of the Parochial report now in use and ask the Lutheran Publication House to give space on same so as to include and give the statistics of the Young People's Societies, showing the enrolled membership and contribu- tions for benevolence."
"Resolved, Second, that we ask the publishers of the Lutheran Evangelist and the Lutheran Observer to devote one page each week to the cause of the Young People's So- cieties, thereby making our Church papers of special interest to our young people and stimulating all our churches to organize this useful agency in promoting Christ's kingdom and the salvation of the young people."
Both of these were taken up in permanent form in our Church papers.
A few denominations have not encouraged the formation of Christian Endeavor Societies from the beginning believing them to be inter-denominational in spirit rather than wisely denominational, and others of them have adopted Christian Endeavor as their offi- cial young people's society. The Lutheran Church, generally, sympathized with the former belief. The first Luther League was organized in St. Peter's Lu- theran church, New York City, in 1887, by the Rev. Dr. Moldenke. These new organizations multiplied very rapidly throughout the various divisions of our church and spread into every state in the Union. The National Luther League of America was organized in
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1895, in the First Lutheran Church of Pittsburg, Pa. Its motto is, "Of the Church, by the Church, and for the Church." Four hundred and twenty delegates, representing 20 different states and as many societies of different names, met to organize the National body. This body has also state and district organization and its outlook for the future is very favorable. It pro- vides a scheme of Bible study for the young people of the Church that is educational as well as spiritual and practical. It is not confined to societies of but one name but embraces Christian Endeavor, Luther Alliances, King's Sons, King's Daughters, and all kindred organizations, under the one constitution. A proposal in Wittenberg Synod in 1894 to organize a Synodical Young People's Union was answered through a committee which reported, that, "they did not regard the scheme with favor and did not believe it would secure the desired end." The Committee de- clared its opinion that "earnest effort ought to be made to unite all the young people of the Lutheran churches of Ohio on the basis of the Luther League." ( Minutes, 1894, p. 24).
The first steps toward the organization of a state League were taken in Wittenberg Synod, at its annual convention in Plymouth, Ohio, in 1895. A committee on Young People's Union reported as follows: (Min- utes, 1895, p. 28).
"Your Committee on Young People's League have the following to report: It is the judgment of your committee that the time has come for the formation of a State League of the young people of our Lutheran Churches, and looking to this end would recommend the appointment of a committee of three at this meeting of Synod to co-operate with sim-
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ilar committees from East Ohio and Miami Synods, and these three committee to constitute a State Executive Committee to make and complete all necessary arrangements for the organization of such Luther League for the State of Ohio."
Accordingly such convention was called at Springfield, Ohio, June 3rd of the following year. About eighty delegates from the Young People's societies of the State, came together, and regularly effected a State organization by the election of officers and the adoption of a constitution.
The following were the officers elected :
President, C. E. Swingle, Esq., Zanesville, Ohio.
Recording Secretary, Mrs. Rev. N. J. Hadley, West Liberty, Ohio.
Corresponding Secretary, Rev. S. G. Dornblaser, Columbus, Ohio.
Treasurer, W. H. G. Kegg, Mansfield, Ohio.
Ten delegates were appointed to a national con- vention to be held in Chicago, in November, 1897. The Second State Convention was held in Delaware, Ohio.
It seems that at the first there were a few dis- tricts which included . much territory, but very few active leagues. One of these was the northeastern district which took in all of the northeastern part of the state. It was organized in 1898. Then, a little later, a few other districts were organized. However, at the convention of the Luther League of Ohio. held at Galion, June 21-22, 1911, the state was divided into twelve districts. Some of these new organiza- tions continued on the foundations of former districts, but most of them were new. As the work of the League extends and new local Leagues are formed,
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changes will doubtless be made in the districts, as a matter of development.
Districts Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8, have either the whole or part of their territory within the boundaries of Wittenberg Synod, as follows: District No. I, first known as the District Luther League of Toledo and vicinity, was organized in St. Matthew's Church, To- ledo, Nov. 5, 1908, with eight Local Leagues. Later the name was changed to the District Luther League of Northwestern Ohio, or, District No. I.
Under the present arrangement, (1916) this dis- trict includes the counties of Williams, Fulton, Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, Wood, Henry, and Defiance; em- bracing 13 Local Leagues, besides Grace Junior League of Toledo.
These Leagues represent three different Synods : Iowa Synod, General Synod, and General Council.
District No. 2 includes ten counties in north- eastern Ohio, only one of them belonging to Witten- berg Synod territory, viz .: Erie County.
Only eight Leagues are reported in this District, though there should be more as all localities had not reported.
District No. 3, known as the Lima District, was organized at the First Lutheran Church, Lima, Ohio, Oct. 10th, 1909, reporting II Leagues, with an aggre- gate membership of about 400. This District in- cludes the counties of Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Allen, Mercer, Auglaize, Shelby, and Hardin.
District No. 4, known as the Findlay District, was organized Nov. 10th, 1912, in the First Lutheran Church of Findlay, Ohio.
9
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This District includes the counties of Hancock, Seneca, Wyandot, and Marion, and reported eight Local Leagues.
District No. 5, known as Mansfield District in- cludes Huron, Ashland, Richland, Crawford, Mor- row, and Knox counties, was organized August 12th, 1904, and has 14 Local Leagues, with an aggregate membership of 650. All of this territory is in the bounds of this Synod except Ashland County.
District No. 8 takes in Logan, Champaign, Clark, and Greene Counties, and is known as Spring- field District. This District has 9 Local Leagues, and was organized in the year 1906. Logan County and the First and Second Lutheran Churches of Spring- field are all that is included in the territory of Witten- berg Synod.
Our young people throughout the Synod are be- ginning to realize the possibilities of the League as an educational organization, acquainting its members with church history and the great things in doctrine and polity for which she stands, and at the same time are being trained to greater usefulness in all lines of useful endeavor.
At its last convention the Synod adopted the fol- lowing :
26 "Resolved, That in view of the tremendous influence being exerted by the Luther League of America upon the coming generation of Lutheran Young People, that we urge upon our pastors the wisdom of offering every possible encouragement to the local organizations, the introduction and maintenance of Lutheran Literature, and a careful and constant affiliation with the League Conferences to whose jurisdiction they belong."
26 Minutes, 1915, p. 91.
CHAPTER VI
Missionary Development
T O speak of the missionary and benevolent work of this Synod in detail is almost to write the spiritual history if not the spiritual biography of its membership. No one who scans thoughtfully the records of this body for the first decades of its history will fail to catch the inspiration that breathes in every line in which reference is made to this im- portant work of the Church. The high and holy pur- pose of the men who organized this body to promote and extend the Redeemer's Kingdom on the territory which it comprised, appears nowhere in their proceed- ings more prominently than in its very beginning. In the original . constitution, we find these strong sen- tences : "Congregations which can not be immediately supplied with a pastor as well as others shall regard it a solemn duty to extend the Redeemer's Kingdom by educating men for the Gospel Ministry and sup- porting Home and Foreign Missions. It shall there- fore be the duty of every minister in this Synod to seek out proper candidates for the sacred office and to collect funds for missions."* Thus committed to this great work in the beginning, we may easily trace the movements of the Synod along these lines in their unvarying fidelity, decade after decade. These were the days in which, in the Lutheran Church, the mis-
*Protocol, pp. 15. 16.
(131)
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sionary spirit in the individual churches and in in- dividual hearts was struggling for active exercise; and when there was no general plan for missionary opera- tions in the General Synod, and they reached out every- where and entered every field of opportunity. These were the days when the great soul of Morris Officer, deeply impressed with the fact that the church does so little to spread the Gospel of Christ, was moving in the churches with untiring zeal, working amid great discouragement to accomplish the great desire of his heart - the planting of Lutheran missions in foreign lands.
Incidentally, I observe that on the 19th of Sep- tember, 1851, in Bucyrus, Ohio, at a meeting of Wit- tenberg Synod, it was that Morris Officer was publicly set apart to the Gospel Ministry and there it was that fifteen years later he first offered his services to the Church to go as missionary to Africa. His proposition received no encouragement because it was thought the Church was not then prepared to undertake such work. But the impress of his spirit and purpose, and of his great faith upon the Synod, was not lost. No member of this Synod has made a deeper and stronger impres- sion upon his brethren. From the time of his entering the Synod, he had taken a conspicuous part in every movement of the Lutheran Church looking to a greater concentration of efforts and had kept the Home and Foreign Mission work in the foremost place. To get all the synods to work together in some central plan was his supreme desire.
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(I)
The first twenty years of our Synod's missionary operations (1847-1867) may be properly termed the period of "Unorganised Missionary Effort." In the first half of this period the missionary efforts among us were centered more especially in the work of edu- cating young men for the Gospel Ministry. The one thing in the way of pushing forward the work of the church was the great lack of qualified men in the pulpits of our churches. The records of contributions and pledges shows not only a steady increase in con- tributions to the beneficiary fund, but also that the fund raised for this object in the Synod, equalled the amount raised for both Home and Foreign Missions together, so that while in this period little was done to extend the church in home and foreign fields, yet here the foundations of our present beneficiary system were laid in the stern necessities of the times. In the second half of this period, we find the beginnings of organization in the benevolent work of the Synod. There is found in the minutes a resolution approving the objects of the Church Extension Society and re- questing pastors to preach on the subject of Church Extension and to receive offerings of the people. The subject of missions was placed upon the list of special subjects which were to be presented at each conven- tion. Rev. Morris Officer began his tour among the churches for the purpose of acquainting our people with the object and plan of the proposed African Mission. Much interest was awakened in his work and also in the work in India, then under the direction of the Foreign Mission Society of the General Synod
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and this Synod resolved to pray for it and to support it to the best of its ability. The Treasurer of this Synod was instructed to forward all missionary funds to the Treasurer of the respective societies, for hither- to a part of the collections for these objects had been allowed to remain unused in the Treasury of the Synod as the report shows. The Constitution of the General Synod had made provision for a central plan or Board to manage its missionary operations, but there was a strong prejudice against such a central agency lest it should abuse its authority and become tyrannical. So it was that this Synod with the other synods was slow to commit its funds into their hands. It too often appears even yet that individuals are 111- willing to trust those noble and self-denying men. Not that they know why, but because they do not wish to hear the pleas that constrain them to support the work. So it was that in 1864, it appeared that the tendency among this and other synods to co-operate was declining rather than increasing and that little more than half the money in the General Treasury had been expended in the actual work. The custom of this and other synods was to send out missionaries on preaching tours of a few weeks and months and pay expenses out of synodical treasuries. In this man- ner the few churches that arose in this period were organized. For this purpose as the records show, the amount of funds collected for the synodical treasury was as great as that of any other fund.
(II)
We now notice the period of organization from 1867-1883. This period was inaugurated by the
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revision of the constitution of the General Synod. This revised constitution in its adoption by the Dis- trict Synods brought before them the fact that the General Synod's Home Mission Society had trans- ferred to the care of the General Synod itself, all its interest and its operations ; that thereupon the General Synod had created Boards of Home Missions, For- eign Missions, and Church Extension, charged with these several interests respectively ; that the district Synods were urged to co-operate with these boards in promoting the work of planting missions and in developing the missionary spirit among the people. In order to make this co-operation the most practical, this Synod, at its convention in 1865, in Shelby, O., created an Advisory Board of Home Missions to be appointed at each convention .* It further showed its hearty approval of this change, in a resolution to raise $1000.00 for Home Missions during the next year. This was done by pledges from churches and individuals. Publication interests, college endow- ment, and the Bible and Tract causes were added to the list of benevolent objects and the necessity of more complete organization of our missionary activities and of greater energy along all these lines was urged from year to year by the agents for these objects in their visits to the Synod. Out of this awakening came the system of apportioning amounts to be raised for these several objects among the churches of the Synod. This method of raising mission funds met with no little opposition throughout the Synod and it was not until some years after its formal adoption by the Synod that it came into general use.
*Minutes, 1865, p. 18.
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So much activity in the general benevolence of the churches could not but make itself felt in the Sunday-school work. Accordingly when in 1873, Rev. A. D. Rowe, under appointment of the Board of For- eign Missions, visited the Synods and churches to en- list the children in Missionary work he was successful in organizing societies of children in many congrega- tions of this Synod and the contributions of the chil- dren reached as high as $650.00 annually for several years. While this children's organization has not been continued in actual existence, it gave rise to a spirit of benevolence among the children of the church that has gone into more permanent form in later years, in the observance of special days on which their con- tributions have been increased into the tens of thou- sands. During this period also, we witness the or- ganization of the women of our churches into Mis- sionary Societies. The results of this movement upon our congregations and our synods have been far- reaching and permanent.
The consecration of time and energy, the enlist- ment of talent hitherto undeveloped and the dissemin- ation of missionary intelligence among women and men of the churches, have not yet reached the climax of possibilities either in point of organization or of enlargement. Wittenberg Synod was among the first to organize a Synodical Woman's Missionary Society, which for the past decades has been doing most ex- cellent work.
A period of greater enlargement in our mission- ary work began when Bro. Jas. H. Emminger, was chosen treasurer of Wittenberg Synod. This was in- augurated by the treasurer's opening an account with
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each congregation in the synod in the matter of con- tributions to every object of benevolence before the churches. Hitherto the apportionment system had been but imperfectly applied. The proper amounts were apportioned not to the individual congregations, but to the charges or pastorates as a whole.
About this time, also, the Synod entered upon the practice of apportioning to the various churches definite and increased amounts for all objects of benevolence, year after year. This was another step in the direction of enlargement with direct results in increased benevolence, and making possible and prac- ticable the undertaking of the education of more men for the ministry and also the organization of an in- creasing number of churches from year to year.
Then, too, the Synod, for a number of years, re- ported each church in surplusage and deficits. This proved an effective method of calling each congrega- tion to account in the matter of raising the funds ap- portioned to it. This did much to stimulate the pas- tors to conscientious effort in raising the amounts ap- portioned. This method was discontinued in 1888, but was resumed in 1901 and is still in practice. Special assessments were made, also, to increase the Synodical Fund so as to supplement the work of the Home Mission Board on our territory. The experi- ment of a Missionary Secretary, or Missionary Su- perintendent, was tried in this Synod from 1890 to 1892, but at that time neither the Synod nor the Gen- eral Boards of the Church could give the work the necessary support, and, though something was done in the supply of vacancies, the strengthening of weak congregations, and the looking up of new fields, the
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office was discontinued. The action of the Synod is expressed in the following report :
"Your Committee on Traveling Secretary would re- port that after the last meeting of this Synod, Rev. C. S. Ernsberger continued in the work for which he was chosen until June, 1892, when he resigned, to take charge at Osborn, Ohio. We held several meetings during the year. The interests of different places were carefully considered, and such direction and encouragement as we could give were afforded the Secretary.
It is but just and proper to say that we were well satis- fied with the faithful and efficient service of Brother Erns- berger. We accepted his resignation with regret. At the present time, in the judgment of your committee, there is not sufficient need on our territory requiring the special ser- vices of a Traveling Secretary. We therefore recommend the discontinuance of this work for the coming year." (Min., 1892, pp. 32 and 33.)
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