Complete records are especially necessary in our great city with its constant removals and changes of population. The individual is like the proverbial needle in the haystack, unless we adopt a method of accounting not only for each family but for each individual down to the latest-born child.* *In order that I may not be as one that beateth the air, I venture to suggest a method of laying the foundation of records that has been helpful in my own work. I send to each family a "Family Register" blank with spaces for the name, birthday and place of birth of each member of the family. The information thus obtained is transferred to a card catalogue in which the additional relation of each individual to the church and its work is noted. In this way, or by means of a loose-leaf record book, available and up-to-date information can easily be kept. When important records, such as synodical minutes, are printed, several copies at least should be printed on durable paper and deposited in public libraries where they may be consulted by the historian. Ordinary paper is perishable. Within a few years it will crumble to dust. The records might as well be written on sand so far as their value for future historians is concerned. Congregational histories, pamphlets or bound volumes, jubilee volumes and similar contributions to local church history should be sent to the publlic libraries of the city and of the denominational schools. In search of recent information the author consulted the card index of the New York Public Library. He found only nine cards relating to Lutheran churches. And yet we wonder why our church is not better known in this city. EPILOGUE One seldom finds an epilogue in a book nowadays. Its purpose in the drama was to explain to the audience the meaning of the play. It does not speak well for a writer if the people miss the point of his essay. But it is just like a preacher to say something "in conclusion" to secure, if possible, the hesitating assent of some hearer. We have reached the 20th century. We are looking back upon 270 years of history on Manhattun Island. What we have done and what we have left undone is recorded in the stereotyped pages of an unchanging past. Our successes and our failures are the chapters from which we may learn lessons for the future. The gates of that future are open to us now. Where Arensius and Falckner ministered to a feeble flock under inconceivable difficulties, there is built the greatest, certainly the largest, city of the world. From all the races and tongues of the earth men are gathering here to solve the problems of their lives. From Lutheran lands fifty myriads have already come and are living within our walls. Consciously or otherwise they appeal to us, their brethren in the faith, for that religious fellowship for which every man sometimes longs. If we do not respond, who shall interpret for them the religious life and questions of the new world?