Apology

Lutherans are not foreigners in New York. Most of us it is true are new
comers. But with a single exception, that of the Dutch Reformed Church,
Lutherans were the first to plant the standard of the cross on Manhattan
Island.

The story of our church runs parallel with that of the city. Our
problems are bound up with those of New York. Our neighbors ought to be
better acquainted with us. We ought to be better acquainted with them.
We have common tasks, and it would be well if we knew more of each
other's ways and aims.

New York is a cosmopolitan city. It is the gateway through which the
nations are sending their children into the new world.

Lutherans are a cosmopolitan church. Our pastors minister to their
flocks in fifteen languages. No church has a greater obligation to "seek
the peace of the city" than the Lutherans of New York. No church has a
deeper interest in the problems that come to us with the growth and ever
changing conditions of the metropolis.

In their earlier history our churches had a checkered career. In recent
years they have made remarkable progress. In Greater New York we enroll
this year 160 churches. The Metropolitan District numbers 260
congregations holding the Lutheran confession. But the extraordinary
conditions of a rapidly expanding metropolis, with its nomadic
population, together with our special drawback of congregations divided