ient and venerable Synod of Pennsylvania is rapidly increasing both
in members and in ministers, and we trust that much good is doing in the
name of our blessed Savior Jesus. From the minutes of the session of the
present year, which was held at Lebanon, it appears that the body
consists of 74 ministers, who have the pastoral charge of upwards of 278
churches; that between the session of 1822 and 1823 they admitted to
membership by baptism 6,445, admitted to sacramental communion by
confirmation 2,750, that the whole number of communicants is 24,794, and
that there are under the superintendence of the different churches 208
congregational schools." (11.) In 1843, according to the _Lutheran
Almanac_ for that year, the General Synod numbered 424 ordained and
licensed pastors and 1,374 congregations with 146,303 communicants. This
averaged three congregations for every pastor, some serving as many as
six, eight, or even twelve, giving the majority of the congregations one
service every four weeks, and to many only one service every eight
weeks. (_Kirchl. Mitt. 1843, No. 11.) In 1853 about 9,000 Lutheran
congregations in the United States were served by only 900 pastors.
(_Lutheraner,_ 10, 31.) Thus, as the years rolled on, the question
became increasingly pressing: "Where shall we find pastors for our
children?" Yet, while the Lutheran ministers, as a rule, were most
zealous and self-sacrificing in their labors to serve and gather the
scattered Lutherans, organize congregations, and establish parochial
schools, the early history of American Lutheranism does not record a
single determined effort anywhere to provide in a systematic way for the
training of preachers and teachers, such as were required by American
conditions and surroundings. We hear of an orphan home founded by the
Salzburgers in 1737 with three boys and eight girls, but nowhere of a
seminary turning out preachers and teachers for the maintenance and
upbuilding of the Church. It was in 1864, more than 120 years after the
first appearance of Muhlenberg in Pennsylvania, that the "Mother Synod"
of the Lutheran Church in America founded a seminary in Philadelphia.

58. Hopeless Situation.--Several years after his arrival in America,
Muhlenberg realized the need and conceived the thought of founding an
orphan asylum with a preachers' seminary in connection; and in 1748 he
had acquired the ground for this purpose. In his letters to Halle he
repeatedly declared that