November 5

The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.

Besides your church and school there is also the synod to which you and your congregation belong. It consists of many congregations, joined for the purpose of doing mission-work. For your congregation alone cannot preach the Gospel in all the world, but a large number of congregations can easily do it. When our Lutheran Zion was transplanted to this Western Hemisphere, she numbered but a few pastors and some hundred souls. But, lo! to-day she has thousands of pastors, who are fighting the Lord's battles, and over a million souls. From this marvelous growth of our Church it is apparent that the Lord loves the gates of His Lutheran Zion. We praise the Lord for the wonderful visitations of His grace. Despite the fact that we are clearly living in the latter days, in the days of infidelity, of scoffers, and of love waxing cold, we experience that God's Word is preached in our midst in such purity as has been seldom attained since the time of the apostles. While the rule in earlier centuries was that whoever preached and practised the truth with all his heart was hated, persecuted, and soon found himself in a very small minority, we have experienced the exceptional grace that such preaching and practise have been attended by a phenomenal success, so that the Lutheran Church of our country has outstripped all others in rate of growth. Men who immigrated to this country, their minds imbued with error, were here led to a knowledge of the truth as it was restored at the time of the Reformation. Then God used these men as instruments for the upbuilding of a great Church, which holds, confesses, and proclaims Luther's doctrine in all its purity. And unto this day God is granting to the testimony of Luther's doctrine pure victory after victory. The world stands in need of just such a Church.

The strength of a Church lies in its faithful adherence to the Word of God. And this is the grand privilege we have enjoyed. By God's grace we have the knowledge of the full Gospel truth. May the Lord always keep us in His truth!

Prayer.

O Thou eternal God and faithful Father, we render Thee humble thanks for all the spiritual benefits received at Thy hands

during the past years of our lives. Thou hast suffered us to retain Thy holy Word and the public preaching thereof, together with the holy Sacraments, while we, by our ingratitude, have fully deserved that we should be deprived of such blessings; for we are not at all worthy of all the mercies Thou hast shown us. Grant grace that the truth may become a living knowledge among us, which praises Thee by its fruits. We have been taught the truth from our youth, and our lives have fallen in a time of peculiar grace. Amen.

It is time to be brave. It is time to be true. It is time to be finding the thing you can do. It is time to put by the dream and the sigh And work for the cause that is holy and high.