American Lutheranism Volume II Part 6

The union was not consummated because the anti-unionistic construction which Iowa put on the Galesburg Rule was disavowed within the General Council and never acknowledged and approved of by this body as such. In 1904, Prof. Proehl, delegate of the Iowa Synod, gloried in the Council as _optima repraesentatio nominis Lutherani_, the best representation of the Lutheran name, a tribute, however, which President Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod refused to endorse. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 38. 516.) 2. The Joint Synod of Ohio had not adopted the const.i.tution of the General Council; and at Fort Wayne, 1867, her delegates finally declined to enter the union because of the non-committal att.i.tude of the Council with respect to chiliasm, pulpit- and altar-fellows.h.i.+p and the lodges-- the so-called Four Points. 3. The Wisconsin Synod separated in 1868 because of the "Four Points." 4. The Michigan Synod, organized in 1860, united with the Council in 1867, withdrew in 1887, and joined the Synodical Conference in 1892. 5. The Minnesota Synod, founded in 1860, united with the General Synod; in 1867 it joined the Council; in 1871 it severed this connection and became a member of the Synodical Conference.

6. The Texas Synod joined the Council in 1868, and left it in 1895, entering the Iowa Synod as Texas District.--The following synods, most of them founded by the General Council, affiliated with this body after its organization in 1867: 1. The Chicago Synod, a name adopted later, organized and joined the Council in 1871 as Indiana Synod. It numbers about 40 pastors and 70 congregations with a communicant members.h.i.+p of 8,300. Its center is the Theological Seminary located near Chicago (Maywood). 2. The English Synod of the Northwest was founded by the Council in 1891 which led to various frictions with the Swedish Augustana Synod. Pastors, 37; congregations, 40; communicants, 11,000.

3. The Synod of Manitoba, founded 1897, numbers 35 pastors, 62 congregations, and 5,000 communicants. 4. The Pacific Synod, organized by the Council in 1901, numbers 21 pastors, 18 congregations, and 1,906 communicants. 5. The Synod of New York and New England, organized in 1902, embraces 65 pastors, 67 congregations, and 19,000 communicants.

6. The Nova Scotia Synod, organized in 1903, reports 6 pastors, 27 congregations, and 2,900 communicants. 7. The Synod of Central Canada, organized 1909, numbers 12 pastors, 16 congregations, and 1,800 communicants.

107. Statistical and Other Data.--In 1917, a year before the Merger, the General Council reported 13 district synods with about 1,700 pastors, 2,600 congregations, and a confirmed members.h.i.+p of 530,000. Among the higher inst.i.tutions then within the Council were the following: 1. The Philadelphia Seminary, now located in Mount Airy, Pa., and belonging to the Pennsylvania Synod. Since its founding in 1864 this seminary has educated almost 875 pastors under the Professors Drs. C.F. and L.W.

Schaeffer, Mann, Krauth, Krotel, Spaeth, H.E. and C.M. Jacobs, Hilprecht, Spieker, Frey, Offermann (appointed by the New York Ministerium), Schmauk, Reed, Benze. 2. The Chicago Seminary, located in Maywood, Ill., was founded by Pa.s.savant and opened 1891. Here about 260 pastors were trained by the Drs. Weidner, Krauss, Gerberding, Ramsey, and Stump. 3. The Swedish Seminary in Rock Island, Ill. (founded in Chicago in 1860 and removed to Rock Island in 1875), has graduated more than 700 pastors. 4. The Seminary at Kropp, Schleswig, Germany, founded 1882 by Paulsen, for years received support from the General Council. 5.

Muhlenberg College, at Allentown, Pa., founded 1867 by the Pennsylvania Synod, now directed by Dr. Haas. 6. Wagner College, at Rochester, N.Y., founded 1883 by the New York Ministerium, Dr. Nic.u.m being one of its professors and benefactors. 7. Thiel College, at Greenville, Pa., founded 1870 by the Pittsburgh Synod. 8. The Swedish Bethany College, founded in 1881 at Lindsborg, Kans. 9. The Swedish Gustavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter, Minn. 10. The Swedish Luther Academy, at Wahoo, Nebr.--Apart from the Augustana Synod, about 160 parochial schools, mostly Sat.u.r.day and vacation schools, have been conducted within the General Council. Judging from Dr. Gerberding's _Problems and Possibilities_ (115) and similar utterances, the English element in the General Council, like that of the General Synod, was opposed to parish schools. Foremost among the numerous benevolent inst.i.tutions are the Wartburg Orphan Asylum and the Drexel Deaconess Home. In 1869 the General Council a.s.sumed the support of that part of the India mission which the General Synod, after the breach in 1866, was about to surrender to the Episcopalians. In 1841 "Father Heyer had been sent as the first American Lutheran missionary to India. He returned in 1857 and began home missionary work in Minnesota. In 1869, seventy-six years old, he offered his services to the Pennsylvania Synod for the Lutheran Mission in India, where he labored till 1871."

CHARLES PORTERFIELD KRAUTH.

108. A Star of the First Magnitude.--Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823--1883), son of Charles Philip Krauth, was educated at Pennsylvania College and the Seminary in Gettysburg. He was licensed in 1841 and ordained 1842. He served as pastor in Baltimore from 1842; in Shepherdstown and Martinsburg 1847; in Winchester 1848; in St. Thomas, West Indies, 1852 (a Dutch Reformed congregation during the absence of its pastor); in Pittsburgh, Pa., from 1855; in Philadelphia from 1859.

In 1861 he resigned his pastorate in order to devote his whole strength to the editors.h.i.+p of the _Lutheran and Missionary_, which in his hands became a weapon against the excrescences of the American Lutheranism then ruling the English Lutheran Church of our country. In 1864, when the Theological Seminary at Philadelphia was founded, Krauth was appointed professor of Dogmatic Theology. He was the prime mover in the establishment of the General Council; wrote the Fraternal Address of 1866, inviting the Lutheran synods to unite in the organization of a new general truly Lutheran body; and was the author of the Fundamental Articles of Faith and Church Polity adopted at the convention at Reading, 1866. Krauth presented the theses on pulpit- and altar-fellows.h.i.+p in 1877, framed the const.i.tution for congregations of 1880, and a.s.sisted in the liturgical work which resulted in the publication of the Church Book, completed in 1891. From 1870 to 1880 Krauth was president of the General Council. In 1868 he was appointed professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1880 he made a journey to Europe for his own recuperation and in the interest of a Luther biography, which, however, did not make its appearance. In 1882, a year before his death, he became editor-in-chief of the _Lutheran Church Review._ He died January 2, 1883. Besides contributing many articles to the _Lutheran_ and to various reviews and encyclopedias, Krauth translated Tholuck's _Commentary on the Gospel of John,_ 1859; edited Fleming's _Vocabulary of Philosophy_, 1860; wrote the _Conservative Reformation and Its Theology_, 1872; and published a number of other books of a philosophical and theological character. The most important of Krauth's numerous publications is _The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology_. The _Lutheran Church Review_, 1917: "It is doubtful whether any other single book ever published in America by any theologian more profoundly impressed a large [English] church const.i.tuency, or did more to mold its character. As theologian and confessor Dr. Krauth stands preeminent in the [English] Lutheran Church." (144.) For twenty years Charles Porterfield Krauth was one of the prominent theologians of the General Synod, and since 1866 the leader and most conservative, competent, and influential theologian of the General Council. Krauth was a star of the first magnitude in the Lutheran Church of America, or as Walther put it, "the most eminent man in the English Lutheran Church of this country, a man of rare learning, at home no less in the old than in modern theology, and, what is of greatest import, whole-heartedly devoted to the pure doctrine of our Church, as he had learned to understand it, a n.o.ble man and without guile." (_L. u. W._ 1883, 32.)

109. Krauth's Manly Recantation.--During the first half of his ecclesiastical activity C.P. Krauth was a p.r.o.nounced unionistic theologian. He fully endorsed the indifferentistic principles of the General Synod, whose champion he was till 1864. During the Platform controversy Krauth was zealous to settle the difficulties on the accustomed unionistic lines of the General Synod. He framed the compromise resolutions of the Pittsburgh Synod in 1856 on the Definite Platform. In the following year he wrote a series of articles for the _Missionary_ in defense of the General Synod and its doctrinal basis. In 1858 he defended S.S. Schmucker against the charges of unsound doctrine, preferred by J.A. Brown. In 1859 he offered the motion for the admission of the liberal Melanchthon Synod. As late as 1864 he continued to defend the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental articles in the Augsburg Confession, and declared that the pledge referred to the fundamental articles only, specifically excluding Article XI of the Augsburg Confession from this pledge. In the _Lutheran and Missionary_, April 7, 1864, Krauth declared: "Let the old formula stand, and let it be defined." As late as 1868, three years after his public retraction of former errors, and later, Krauth held that, exceptionally, non-Lutherans might be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars. Dr. Singmaster writes: "That the Definite Platform caused the secession of the Ministerium [of Pennsylvania] some years later seems quite improbable, for the chief promoter of the General Council, the Rev. C.P. Krauth, Jr., was at this time an ardent defender of the General Synod. He made apologies for his old teacher [S.S. Schmucker], and probably prevented his impeachment by the Seminary Board when it was urged by the Rev. J.A. Brown." (_Dist.

Doctr_., 1914, 53.) In the _Lutheran and Missionary_, July 13, 1865, Krauth published that remarkable declaration in which he, defining his position as to fundamentals, retracted, as he put it, his former "crudities and inconsistencies" on this point. Among his statements are the following: "We do not feel ashamed to confess that time and experience have modified our earlier views, or led us to abandon them, if we have so modified or so forsaken them." "In Church and State the last years have wrought changes, deep and thorough, in every thinking man, and on no point more than this, that compromise of principle, however specious, is immoral, and that, however guarded it may be, it is perilous; and that there is no guarantee of peace in words where men do not agree in things." "To true unity of the Church is necessary an agreement in fundamentals, and a vital part of the necessity is an agreement as to what are fundamentals. The doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession are all articles of faith, and all articles of faith are fundamental. Our Church can never have a genuine internal harmony, except in the confession, without reservation or ambiguity of these articles, one and all. This is our deep conviction, and we hereby retract, before G.o.d and His Church, formally, as we have already earnestly and repeatedly done indirectly, everything we have written or said in conflict with this our present conviction. This we are not ashamed to do. We thank G.o.d, who has led us to see the truth, and we thank Him for freeing us from the temptation of embarra.s.sing ourselves with the pretense of a present absolute consistency with our earlier, very sincere, yet relatively very immature views." (Spaeth, 2, 114 f.) Walther, who had rounded out almost a quarter century of faithful Lutheran work when Krauth was still a champion of the original basis of the General Synod, gloried in this frank and manly retraction of Krauth as "an imperishable monument of the sincerity of his convictions."

110. Endorsing Walther's Views on Christian Union.--In opposition to the unionistic tendencies of the Lutheran synods in the United States, especially those affiliated with the General Synod, Walther had maintained that church union dare not be advocated and effected at the expense of any doctrine clearly revealed in the Scripture. It was in complete agreement with this view that Krauth, in his address before the Pittsburgh Synod, October 1866, declared: "With her eternal principles, what shall be the future of our beloved Zion in this land? Shall it be conflict, division, weakness, or shall it be peace, unity, zeal, unfolding all her energies? It is unity. Every difficulty in her way, every barrier to her progress, proceeds from the lack of unity. But what is the unity of the Church? That question was answered three centuries ago by the Reformers, and fifteen centuries before that in the New Testament. True unity is oneness in faith, as taught in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are one with the Church of the apostles because we hold its faith; one with the Church of the Reformers, alone because we hold its faith. Outward human forms are nothing; ecclesiastical government, so far as it is of man, is nothing; all things are nothing, if there be not this oneness of faith. With it begins, in its life continues, in its death ends, all true unity. There can be, there is, no true unity but in the faith.... The one token of this unity, that by which this internal thing is made visible, is one expression of faith, one 'form of sound words,' used in simple earnestness, and meaning the same to all who employ it.... You may agree to differ; but when men become earnest, difference in faith will lead first to fervent pleadings for the truth, and, if these be hopelessly unheeded, will lead to separation. All kinds of beliefs and unbeliefs may exist under the plea of toleration; but when the greatest love is thus professed, there is the least. Love resulting from faith is G.o.d's best gift. Love that grows out of opposition or indifference to faith, G.o.d abhors. There can be no true love where there is not also true hatred,--no love to truth without abhorrence of error.... In Christ we can alone find unity. Only when we meet in this center of all true unity will we have peace. And we can be in Christ only in a faith which accepts His every word in His own divine meaning, and shrinks with honor from the thought that, in the prost.i.tuted name of peace and love, we shall put upon one level the pure and heavenly sense of His Word and the artful corruption of that sense by the tradition of Rome or the vanity of carnal reason." (Spaeth, 2, 162 f.) With respect to the Missouri Synod Krauth wrote, April 7, 1876: "I have been saddened beyond expression by the bitterness displayed towards the Missourians. So far as they have helped us to see the great principles involved in this disputation [concerning the Four Points], they have been our benefactors, and although I know they have misunderstood some of us, that was perhaps inevitable. They are men of G.o.d, and their work has been of inestimable value." (2, 236.)

111. Krauth on Predestination.--In a letter dated February 13, 1880, Dr.

Krauth said: "I have not read Dr. Walther's exposition of the doctrine of election, but I purpose, as soon as I can command leisure, to write something whose object shall be to show that the New Testament doctrine, confessed by our Church, in regard to election, as fully as the most extreme Calvinism, gives all the glory to G.o.d and ascribes to Him the total merit of our salvation, both as secured and applied, and yet clearly and properly makes man responsible for his own destruction....

Luther is constantly claimed by the Calvinists, and I have known intelligent Calvinists who are entirely satisfied with the Formula of Concord on the 'Five Points.' Yet, the claim and the satisfaction are both groundless. The truth in the Formula so strictly follows the line of Scripture thinking that it is hard to get a spear's point under the scales of its armor. My own conviction about Luther is, that he was never a Calvinist on the 'Five Points,' but Augustinian, with some aspects of coincidence and _many_ of divergence, even where he was nearest Calvinism." In an article found among his papers after his death, Krauth says: "Why do men in completely parallel relations to this election move in opposite directions? The one believes, the other disbelieves. Is the election of G.o.d in any sense the cause of the difference? The answer of the Calvinist is: Yes. The answer of the Lutheran is: No. The election of G.o.d is indeed the cause of the faith of the one, but it is neither positively nor negatively, neither by act nor by failure to act, the cause of the unbelief of the other. Hence it is not the cause of the difference. I choose (or elect) to offer bread to two beggars. The election of bread for his food and the election to offer it to him are the proper cause of the reception of the bread on the part of the one, but they are not the cause of the rejection on the part of the other. The first concurs in my election, but his concurrence is the effect, not the cause, of my election. The second refuses, but his refusal is not the effect of my election, but an effect in spite of it. As between me and the men the decision must be, that the acceptance of one is no more than the refusal of the other, the cause of my election. But between the one and the other the difference is made by the willingness to receive, wrought by me through the offer, and the unwillingness to receive, wrought by the man himself in spite of the offer. Faith is not the cause of our general election. That must be admitted by all. But neither can it be the cause of our particular election, for the particular is only possible, and indeed only thinkable, as the result of the general. But it is the cause of the difference between the man who receives the benefits of this election, and the man who refuses them. This faith is foreseen indeed, but it does not become by that the cause of the election--it is foreseen as an effect of the election and therefore cannot be considered as the cause; it is a finality in the work of G.o.d in the restoration of fellows.h.i.+p. It is, as a condition, part of the election, and cannot therefore be the cause of the whole." (2, 327 ff.) Evidently, then, Krauth was not ready to solve the mystery of election by a.s.suming that, in the last a.n.a.lysis, a difference in their respective guilt is the final cause why some are saved while others are lost.

OTHER REPRESENTATIVE THEOLOGIANS.

112. Dr. Wm. Julius Mann (1819--1892) was born at Stuttgart, Wuerttemberg; graduated at Tuebingen, 1841; active as teacher till 1844; came to America in 1845, influenced by his intimate friend Ph. Schaff at Mercersburg, who had left Germany in 1844; 1846 a.s.sistant pastor of a German Reformed congregation in Philadelphia; 1850 a.s.sistant to Dr.

Demme, pastor of Zion Ev. Luth. Congregation, Philadelphia, to which H.M.

Muhlenberg had been called in 1742; in 1851 he was received into the Ministerium of Pennsylvania; served as president of this body from 1860 to 1862 and 1880; from 1864 to 1892 he was professor in Philadelphia Seminary. From 1848 to 1859 Dr. Mann cooperated in editing the _Deutsche Kirchenzeitung_, established by Schaff as "an organ for the common interests of the American German [Reformed and Lutheran] churches." The _Kirchenzeitung_, of which Mann in 1854 became editor-in-chief, was a paper for theologians, not for laymen. It bore the motto: "In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas." Its object was "to prepare the way for the Lord, and add a few stones to the dome of the Church of the future." It served the Lutheran and Reformed churches by antagonizing revivalism. From 1863 to 1866 Dr. Mann was editorially responsible for _Evangelische Zeugnisse_, a German homiletic monthly, also established by his friend Ph. Schaff. In 1856 Mann opposed the Definite Platform in his _Plea for the Augsburg Confession_, and 1857 in his _Lutheranism in America_. In 1864 he translated the _New Testament Commentary_ of the American Tract Society into German for this society. In 1886 he edited _Hallesche Nachrichten_ (Vol. I); 1887 he published the _Life and Times of H.M. Muhlenberg_; 1891 the same in German. Apart from quite a number of other books, Dr. Mann wrote articles for various German and English periodicals. "I always prepare myself closely," said Mann in a letter of February 14, 1866, "for the recitations in the seminary, write every week for the _Lutheran_, more for the _Lutherische Zeitschrift_ of Brobst, continue the translation of the Tract Society's Commentary on the New Testament, keep up some correspondence, and at the same time perform my various and burdensome duties as a pastor and, find yet a little, a very little, time for light reading." Mann, for many years a bosom friend of the arch-unionist Ph.

Schaff, whom he admired as "the presiding genius of international theology," gradually became a conservative confessional Lutheran theologian, opposed also to the unionism as practised by the General Synod. On April 7, 1892, Schaff wrote to his friend: "What right had the sixteenth and seventeenth century to prescribe to future generations all theological thinking? We are as near to Christ and to the Bible as the framers of the confessions of faith." Dr. Mann answered: "In the air in which this letter breathes I cannot live.... What right had the framers of the American Const.i.tution to lay down a basis for the administrative side of the life of this nation?" As to the General Synod, Dr. Mann's love for it gradually turned into aversion, because of its utterly un-Lutheran features. He charged the General Synod with living "in a concubinage with the Presbyterians and Methodists." In 1853 he wrote: "I have rejoiced over the union of our Pennsylvania Synod with the General Synod, and now I rejoice still more." (173.) Mann still failed to see that no one can truly love the Lutheran Church who despises, ignores, and denies her doctrines and usages. In 1855 he said of Missouri: "They have no patience with their weaker sister," meaning the General Synod.

(176.) But in the immediately following years Mann himself began to attack the Definite Platform and its American Lutheranism. With respect to the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of America, however, Dr. Mann never occupied a clear, firm, and determined Lutheran position. He revealed no interest in the discussions on the Four Points.

Of the Missouri Synod Dr. Mann wrote in 1866: "These theological scratchbrushes (_Kratzbuersten_) of the West do an important work. They discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical Americanism. There is a firm character here. They will not always remain as rugged as they are now. The coming generation will be English and milder in many respects. The Missourians are a power in the West, where the Germans generally are becoming a power, the longer the more. They will obtain an ever stronger elementary influence. The German [?] blood will make its influence felt for a long time." (Spaeth, _W.J. Mann_.)

113. Pa.s.savant, Schmucker, Seiss, etc.--Other names well known beyond the General Council are Drs. Pa.s.savant, B.M. Schmucker, Krotel, Seiss, Spaeth, Weidner, etc. _Dr. W.A. Pa.s.savant_ (1821--1894) was born of Huguenot ancestry at Zelienople, Pa.; graduated in Gettysburg Seminary; was pastor in Baltimore till 1844 and in Pittsburgh till 1855; published the _Missionary_ in 1845, which in 1861 was merged with _The Lutheran_, Pa.s.savant remaining coeditor. He established _The Workman_ in 1880, which he edited in a conservative, confessional spirit, while in the _Missionary_ he had been a fiery advocate of New-measurism. Cooperating with Pastor Fliedner of Kaiserswerth, Pa.s.savant introduced the first deaconesses in America; founded hospitals, orphanages, and academies; presented, in 1868, the ground for the Theological Seminary at Chicago; organized the home missionary work of the Pittsburgh Synod (whose founder he was) and of the General Council. Pa.s.savant was preeminently a missionary and philanthropist--the "American Fliedner." Dr. G.W. Sandt, in _Lutheran Church Review_ 1918: "Pa.s.savant was educated in a Presbyterian college, where revivals were a fixed part of the curriculum. He prepared for the ministry in a Lutheran seminary at a time when Lutherans were more 'anxious' about the 'bench' than they were about the faith. It is not to be wondered at that his early ministry reflected the fitful and unstable emotionalism of the 'Anxious Bench'

religionism, which he later outgrew and disowned." (442.)--_Dr. Beale Melanchthon Schmucker_ (1827--1888), though a son of S.S. Schmucker, did not agree with the Definite Platform. He was secretary of the English Church Book Committee, a member of the German Kirchenbuch and Sonntagsschulbuch Committee, and of the Joint Committee on Common Service. He was regarded as the greatest liturgical scholar of the Lutheran Church in America and admired as a parliamentarian. He was a pa.s.sionate lover of the Reformation and its literature. The _Church Book_ of the General Council has been said to be "his lasting monument."

Through it he laid the foundation also for the Common Service. "Next to Dr. C.P. Krauth," said the _Kirchenblatt_ of the Iowa Synod (1918), "there is no man to whom the General Council owes so much as to Dr. B.M.

Schmucker." B.M. Schmucker published articles on liturgical, hymnological, biographical, and other themes, and wrote the preface to the Common Service, first published by the United Synod of the South, 1888.--_Dr. G.F. Krotel_ (1826--1907) studied theology under Dr. Demme; was renowned as pulpit orator; succeeded Krauth in the editors.h.i.+p of the _Lutheran_; repeatedly served the Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council as president.--_Dr. J.A. Seiss_ was pastor in Philadelphia from 1858 till his death in 1904; he also served as president of the Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council. Seiss was one of the most prolific Lutheran authors in America. "There was a strength, a stateliness, a dignity, and an artistic finish to all his greatest pulpit efforts that compelled a hearing." (_Luth. Church Review_ 1918, 90.) His style is oratorical rather than churchly. His _Lectures on the Gospels and Epistles_ are the fruit of many years of careful sermonizing and study. In his lectures on the _Last Times_, 1856, and on the _The Apocalypse_, 1866, Seiss championed the cause of a chiliasm which the General Council refused to reject.--_Dr. Adolph Spaeth_ (1839--1910) graduated at Tuebingen; active in Wuerttemberg, Italy, France, and Scotland till he accepted a call as Dr. Mann's a.s.sistant in Philadelphia in 1864; served as professor at the Seminary from 1867 till his death; was president of the General Council from 1880 to 1888, and of the Pennsylvania Synod from 1892 to 1895. He wrote the biographies of W.J.

Mann, 1895, and of C.P. Krauth, Vol. I, 1898; Vol. II, 1909.--_Dr. R.F.

Weidner_ (1851--1915), president of the Seminary of the General Council at Chicago since its opening in 1891, reproduced in the English language a number of modern German theological works.

CONSt.i.tUTION.

114. Fundamental Articles of Faith.--At the preliminary meeting at Reading, 1866, "Fundamental Principles," embracing nine Articles of Faith and Church Polity and eleven Articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, were adopted as a necessary condition of the contemplated union. The first Article of Faith states that, "to the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gospel," etc. The second declares: "The true unity of a particular church, in virtue of which men are truly members of one and the same church, and by which any church abides in real ident.i.ty, and is ent.i.tled to a continuation of her name, is unity in doctrine and faith and in the Sacraments, to wit, that she continues to teach and to set forth, and that her true members embrace from the heart, and use, the articles of faith and the Sacraments as they were held and administered when the Church came into distinctive being and received a distinctive name." The third article distinguishes general and particular symbols. The fourth emphasizes that these confessions are a testimony of unity and a bond of union only when "accepted in their own true, native, original, and only sense." Those who "subscribe them must not only agree to use the same words, but must use and understand those words in one and the same sense." According to the fifth article the unity of the Lutheran Church "depends upon her abiding in one and the same faith." Article six reads: "The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by preeminence the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its doctrines and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental reservation make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone, in the true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term, is the Evangelical Lutheran Church." According to the seventh article the only churches "ent.i.tled to the name Evangelical Lutheran are those which sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." The next article reads: "We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which G.o.d's Word is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in perfect accordance with the canonical Scriptures: We reject the errors it condemns, and believe that all which it commits to the liberty of the Church of right belongs to that liberty." The ninth article declares "that the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural," and that all of them "are, with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith." (Ochsenford, _Doc.u.mentary History_, 178 f.) According to the By-laws of the Const.i.tution "the first two morning sessions after the opening of the convention shall be devoted to the discussion of doctrinal points and important practical questions."

115. Articles on Church Polity.--According to the second of the eleven articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, the church "has no power to bind the conscience, except as she truly teaches what her Lord teaches, and faithfully commands what He has charged her to command." The third reads: "The absolute directory of the will of Christ is the Word of G.o.d, the canonical Scriptures, interpreted in accordance with the 'mind of the Spirit,' by which Scriptures the Church is to be guided in every decision. She may set forth no article of faith which is not taught by the very letter of G.o.d's Word, or derived by just and necessary inference from it, and her liberty concerns those things only which are left free by the letter and spirit of G.o.d's Word." The fourth continues: "The primary bodies through which the power is normally exercised, which Christ commits derivatively and ministerially to His Church on earth, are the congregations. The congregation, in the normal state, is neither the pastor without the people, nor the people without the pastor." This paragraph permits of an interpretation that opens a loophole for Romanism. According to the sixth article "a free, Scriptural General Council, or Synod, chosen by the Church, is, within the metes and bounds fixed by the Church which chooses it, representatively that Church itself; and in this case is applicable the language of the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles: 'The judgments of synods are the judgments of the Church.'" This seems to imply that the judgments of synods are as such correct and binding. The tenth article reads: "In the formation of a General Body the synods may know, and deal with, each other only as synods. In such case the official record is to be accepted as evidence of the doctrinal position of each synod, and of the principles for which alone the other synods become responsible by connection with it." This paragraph, which was embodied also in the const.i.tution of the United Lutheran Church, opened the door to indifferentism inasmuch as it made the General Council responsible, not for the actual conditions within, but only for the official att.i.tude and deliverances of its district synods.

116. A Legislative Body.--The seventh article of "Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government" reads: "The congregations representatively const.i.tuting the various district synods may elect delegates through these synods to represent themselves in a more general body, all decisions of which, when made in conformity with the solemn compact of the const.i.tution, _bind_ so far as the terms of mutual agreement make them binding on those congregations which consent, and continue to consent, to be represented in that General Body." According to the ninth article, "the obligation under which congregations consent to place themselves, to conform to the decisions of synods, does not rest on any a.s.sumption that synods are infallible, but on the supposition that the decisions have been so guarded by wise const.i.tutional provisions as to create a higher moral probability of their being true and rightful than the decisions in conflict with them, which may be made by single congregations or individuals." In keeping herewith Article I, Section 4 of the General Council's const.i.tution provides: "No liturgy or hymn-book should be used in public wors.h.i.+p except by its [the General Council's]

advice or consent, which consent shall be presumed in regard to all such books now used, until the General Council shall have formally acted upon them." That the General Council was not a mere advisory, but a legislative body, was brought out in the Lima Church Case in which the judge decided that, according to the const.i.tution and the expert testimony of members of the General Council, Synod had jurisdiction over its pastors and congregations, and that hence he could not adjudge the property to that part of the congregation which had refused to submit to Synod. Dr. Seiss testified (April 6, 1876) that, according to the const.i.tution of the General Council, congregations are obliged and bound to respect and obey all const.i.tutional resolutions of Synod. In its issue of September 26, 1901, the _Lutheran_ maintained that Christian liberty did not prohibit the Church from making prescriptions to individual congregations in the adiaphora; that pastors and congregations, by joining the Pennsylvania Ministerium, yielded the right to decide and act for themselves, and agreed to submit to the regulations of Synod in the points enumerated; that it was not an infringement of the rights of a congregation to make this a condition of synodical members.h.i.+p. (_L. u. W._ 1901, 305.) In 1915 the Augustana Synod adopted a resolution recommending a change in the const.i.tution of the General Council in order to make the body "both in principle and practise a deliberative and advisory body only."

117. Conforming to Decisions a Moral Obligation.--In 1866 Dr. Krauth, defending the polity of the General Council, wrote in the _Lutheran and Missionary_: "We entirely agree with our friend in the _Lutheraner_ that the strength of the Church does not depend upon a '_strong government,_'

but on the unity of faith, doctrine, and confession. But 'strong' and 'weak' are relative terms. We want a _real_ government; something which shall hold in a genuine outward bond, however mild, the true confessors of our Church's faith, and enable them to work in harmony, and if we understand the principles which control the government of the Synod of Missouri, we are sure that we desire nothing stronger nor better in the government of our whole Church in this country than these principles would give us. We only ask a church government which shall bind us by the gentle laws of love and peace, which shall take offenses out of the way, which shall be an aid in causing all things to be done decently and in order in the Church--which shall be a safeguard to conscience, and shall not lay, nor attempt to lay, burdens on it. The decisions of a synod which shall be such a government representatively will indeed be merely human, as the decisions of all earthly governments are merely human--nay, often manifestly wrong; nevertheless, we hold that the generic governmental principles and the right of representation are as really of G.o.d in the Church as in the State. The obligation to conform to the decisions of such a [representative] synod is the obligation of peace, love, and order; and where violation of them (except on the ground of conscience) creates scandal and offense, there is a moral obligation to conform to them." (Spaeth, 2, 172 f.) However, the const.i.tution of the General Council does not contain the limitation: "where violation creates scandal and offense"; and Missouri holds that a congregation may ignore a resolution of synod, not only on the ground of conscience, but also whenever it finds a resolution unsuitable for her conditions.

SUBTILE UNIONISM.

118. Missouri's Att.i.tude toward the General Council.--Originally Dr.

Walther and Dr. Sihler were optimistic with respect to the movements which resulted in the organization of the new general body. Walther wrote: "Scarcely any event within the bounds of the Lutheran Church of North America has ever afforded us greater joy than the withdrawal of the Synod of Pennsylvania from the unionistic so-called General Synod.

This is a step which will undoubtedly lead to consequences of the utmost importance and of the most salutary character. The plan to give prominence and supremacy in this land, by means of the 'General Synod,'

to a so-called American Lutheranism which ignores the distinctive doctrines of the Lutheran Church, and to compel the truly Lutheran synods to occupy a separatistic, isolated, and powerless position, is completely frustrated by this step." (Spaeth, 2, 162.) But the hopes of Walther and his friends were doomed to disappointment, at least in part.

In spite of its irreproachable confessional basis the General Council was imbued with a spirit of indifferentism and unionism, though of a finer grade and quality than that prevailing in the General Synod. In accordance with its principle that fraternal cooperation and union of necessity presupposes unity in doctrine and practise, Missouri, instead of partic.i.p.ating in the hasty organization of the General Council, insisted on Free Conferences in order first to bring about real doctrinal agreement, the prerequisite of every G.o.d-pleasing external union. In Reading, 1866, however, this request was disregarded, union being the paramount, true and real unity a secondary consideration. Nor was there a change effected in this att.i.tude by the subsequent correspondence between the General Council and the Missouri Synod. At Reading the delegates pa.s.sed the resolution: "That the synods represented in this convention which prefer a Free Conference to an immediate organization be and hereby are invited to send representatives to the next meeting, with the understanding that they have in it all the privileges of debate and a fraternal comparison of views." To this Missouri responded at its convention in Chicago, in May, 1867: "In view of the relations we sustain toward different members of the Church Council, in reference to doctrine and churchly practise, we must be apprehensive that the consideration and discussion of differences still existing in the convention of the Church Council might give rise to the reflection that we intended to interrupt the bringing about of a unity, and are therefore fearful lest our partic.i.p.ation, instead of leading to an agreement, might be productive of greater alienation. Even at the risk of appearing capricious in the eyes of the Reverend Body, and less diligent in our efforts for churchly unity, we beg leave to declare it again as our conviction that Free Conferences, such as are separated from officially organized conventions of ecclesiastical bodies, on the basis of the symbols of our Church, as contained in the Book of Concord of 1580, are the only proper means for an exchange of such convictions as are still divergent, and which, by the grace of G.o.d, may lead to a unity on the basis of our beloved Confession." At Fort Wayne, in November, 1867, the General Council renewed the resolution "that we sincerely respect the honest preferences of our brethren [Missouri] in regard to the best means of uniting our Church, and that we are willing to set apart a time, during the future sessions of this body, when it will meet them simply as a Free Conference." And, no answer having been received, the Council, at Pittsburgh, 1868, instructed its secretaries to bring the Fort Wayne action again to the attention of the Missouri Synod. In the following year Missouri answered that it was not its desire to deal with the General Council as such and during the sessions of the same; that by such a side-dealing justice could not be done the matter; that they desired and regarded Free Conferences as the proper means to reach the end contemplated. (Ochsenford, _Doc. History_, 152 ff.) Thus, from the very beginning, Missouri, in the interest of real unity as a prerequisite of union, urged free conferences and doctrinal discussions, while the General Council offered discussions "in regard to the best means of uniting our Church," at the same time insisting on a mode which involved a recognition of the unionistic procedure adopted in organizing the General Council. Considering the facts that some of the synods, uniting in 1866 and 1867 with the General Council, had several months before belonged to the General Synod; that ostensibly they had severed their connection on technical grounds; that all along they had been committed, more or less, not only to a false confessional basis, but also to Reformed doctrines and un-Lutheran practise, etc., the Missouri Synod, without sacrificing its anti-unionistic principles, could hardly have taken a different course of action than it did.

Moreover, the subsequent history of the General Council, down to the Merger in 1918, has proved conclusively that Missouri's original evaluation of the General Council's confessionalism was certainly not very far from the mark. It was, then, the persistent refusal, on the part of the General Council, of free conferences, such as Missouri could have attended without an _a priori_ violation of her convictions, that brought about and prolonged the deadlock obtaining between the two bodies. As late as 1904, at the time of the Inter-synodical Conferences, Dr. Jacobs declared that he would not meet Missouri in a free conference without a preceding joint service of prayer; and to this the _Lutheran_ a.s.sented. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 224. 370.)

119. The Primary Difference.--In 1885 Dr. Spaeth wrote: "In no other Lutheran body of the Old or New World has the question on the great principles of true church unity received such attention and been treated in such a thorough and comprehensive manner as within the General Council." There is certainly a good deal of truth in this a.s.sertion. For the General Council did make repeated efforts at grasping and applying the principles of true church unity. But it lacked consistency, and in formulating the rules and theories, their theologians were influenced by conditions inherited from the General Synod. They lacked the courage or ability of completely breaking with their unionistic past. This was essentially the charge of Missouri against the General Council--the correctness of which was vindicated also by the action taken by the representatives of the synods of Ohio and Iowa at the first convention of the General Council, 1867, at Fort Wayne. While Walther and the Missouri Synod demanded a real, material unity, unity as to the actual content, that is to say, the individual doctrines of the Lutheran symbols, the General Council was satisfied with a mere correct formal acknowledgment of the Confessions. It was the difference between the form and substance of unity. In the _Lutheran_ of August 22, 1907, Dr.

Krotel declared with respect to the doctrinal att.i.tude of the Council: It "firmly refuses to occupy the unionistic position of doctrinal vacillation and tolerance. Contrary to the theological temper of the age, it maintains that there are articles of faith so definite and fixed and clear as to demand unqualified endors.e.m.e.nt and defense."

(_Doc. Hist_., 138.) But Dr. Krotel's a.s.sertions are not supported by the facts. Judged by the real conditions, the General Council has always been a unionistic body.

THE FOUR POINTS.

120. Altar- and Pulpit-Fellows.h.i.+p, Lodges and Chiliasm.--Immediately at its first convention at Fort Wayne, 1867, it became apparent that the General Council was unwilling to take an unequivocal and decided stand with respect to Lutheran doctrine and practise. At Fort Wayne the Joint Synod of Ohio, through its delegates (G. Cronenwett, F.A. Herzberger, G. Baughman), after stating that, despite the reception of the Doctrinal Basis, "un-Lutheran doctrine and practise" were still found in some of the synods connected with the Council, requested an answer to the following questions: "1. What relation will this venerable body in future sustain to Chiliasm? 2. Mixed communions? 3. The exchanging of pulpits with sectarians? 4. Secret or unchurchly societies?"

"Especially," they declared, "would we earnestly desire a decided answer with regard to the last item, inasmuch as the Joint Synod, for years already, in view of certain relations in one of its district synods, has had difficulties in consequence of four pastors belonging to secret societies, and would not, therefore, again burden its conscience." The answer was: "That this Council is aware of nothing in its 'Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity' and Const.i.tution, nor in the relation it sustains in the four questions raised, which justifies a doubt whether its decision on them all, when they are brought up in the manner prescribed in the Const.i.tution, will be in harmony with Holy Scripture and the Confession of the Church. That so soon as official evidence shall be presented to this body, in the manner prescribed by the const.i.tution, that un-Lutheran doctrines or practises are authorized by the action of any of its synods, or by their refusal to act, it will weigh that evidence, and, if it finds they exist, use all its const.i.tutional power to convince the minds of men in regard to them, and as speedily as possible to remove them." (_Doc. Hist_., 156.) In other words: Unite with us, and then we shall see what can be done, according to the "educational methods," with reference to the Four Points. A similar evasive answer was given to the following pet.i.tion of the Iowa Synod: "In order to effect a union of the Church, and that we may all truly agree in the principles of practise as well as of faith, without conditions, the delegates [G. Grossman, S. and G. Fritschel] of the Synod of Iowa propose, in accordance with the instructions of their Synod, that the General Council shall expressly acknowledge what, according to the understanding of the delegates of said Synod, is virtually acknowledged in the 'Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity' adopted by this body, _viz._: 1. that according to the Confession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church there must be, and is, condemned all church-fellows.h.i.+p with such as are not Lutherans; for example, ministers serving congregations such as are mixed and not purely Lutheran, receiving such congregations and their pastors into synodical connection, the admittance of those of a different faith to the privilege of Communion, the permission of those not Lutheran to occupy our pulpits, etc.; 2. according to the Word of G.o.d, church-discipline be exercised, especially at the celebration of the Holy Communion, and be likewise exercised towards those who are members of secret societies." The answer was: "That the General Council is not prepared to endorse the declaration of the Synod of Iowa as a correct logical deduction and application of the negative part of our Confessional Books, and that we refer the matter to the District Synods, until such time as, by the blessings of G.o.d's Holy Spirit and the leadings of His Providence, we shall be enabled throughout the whole General Council and all its churches to see eye to eye in all the details of practise and usage, towards the consummation of which we will direct our unceasing prayers." (161.) In other words: Unite with us, and we shall see what can be done in the future, and whether your position really is in harmony with the Lutheran Confessions. Hereupon the Iowa men declared that their Synod could not unite with the Council, because "in accordance with our deep and sincere conviction, which is at the same time that of the Synod we represent, we must declare it to be a necessary precedent condition of an official ecclesiastical connection between synodical bodies that there should be a complete and hearty agreement not only in the principles of faith and confession, but also in an ecclesiastical practise accordant with such faith and confession, as set forth especially in the first of the propositions presented by us." (162.) Among the pastors who, at Fort Wayne, also declared their dissent with respect to the dubious att.i.tude of the Council regarding the Four Points were the Revs. J. Bading, A. Hoenecke, A. Martin, C.F.

Welden, and C. F. Heyer. (155 ff.)

121. Side-lights on "Four Points" Difficulties.--Dr. S.E. Ochsenford explains in _Doc.u.mentary History of the General Council_: "The difficulty lay in the fact that some synods demanded that that should be done at once[?], regardless of consequences, which others felt could be done with much better results by following an educational method, leading in the process of time all the synods and congregations, among many of which in certain portions of the Church there existed peculiar difficulties, to the same lofty eminence of purity in doctrine and in practise, and so true unity in both. The older synods had difficulties in this respect, of which the more recently formed synods had no true conception. These difficulties could not be eradicated at once and by the fiat of any organization; but as they had grown up gradually, so they must be removed by a process of education." (164.) Dr. Spaeth gives the following explanation of the situation, and apology for the att.i.tude of the General Council at Fort Wayne: "There appeared at this point a wide difference, especially between the Eastern and Western synods, which was in the first place the natural result of the historical development, through which those various sections of the Church had pa.s.sed which now endeavored to form an organic union. The Lutheran Church in the Eastern part of our country, having been founded about one hundred and fifty years ago, had pa.s.sed through all the different stages of church-life, suffering, and death, by which the history of the Church and theology of the German Fatherland was characterized in that period.

We need not be surprised to find that during this time many things crept in which were in conflict with the spirit and Confession of our Church.

Over against those things the renewed appreciation of the Lutheran Confession and the honest return to the same was of comparatively recent date. It was therefore not to be expected that there should have been on all sides at the very outset a thorough insight into all the consequences and obligations of a decided and consistent adoption of the Lutheran Confession. On the other hand, most of the Lutheran synods of the West had been founded at a much more favorable season. Out of the very fulness and freshness of the revived Confession, partly even in the martyr-spirit of a persecuted Church, have their foundations been laid and their structures raised. Accordingly, their whole congregational life could much more easily and more consistently be organized on the principles established in the Confession, and many evils could be excluded which in other places had taken root and had been growing for nearly a century." (164.) However, both Spaeth and Ochsenford fail to see the real issue; for the grievance at Fort Wayne was not the inability to abolish immediately all abuses referred to in the Four Points, but rather the persistent refusal on the part of the General Council to take, as such, a definite and unequivocal Lutheran att.i.tude with respect to these questions. Nor was the charge, at least on the part of Missouri, with respect to the "educational method," as advocated and applied from 1867 to 1918 by the Council, directed against this method as such, but against the mutilation of this method by practically eliminating its eventual natural termination, expulsion according to Matt. 18, and against the apparent insincerity in the advocacy, and the lack of seriousness in the application of this method. Indeed, the real grievance was not that weak members of the General Council were lagging behind in Lutheran doctrine and practise, but that many of her prominent leaders and her periodicals occupied an un-Lutheran position and championed un-Lutheran doctrine and practise.

AKRON-GALESBURG RULE.

122. Non-Lutherans Admitted Exceptionally.--Regarding the Four Points, especially the question of altar- and pulpit-fellows.h.i.+p, the General Council during its subsequent history never really rose above the Fort Wayne level. In 1868, at Pittsburgh, the Council declared "that no man shall be admitted to our pulpits, whether of the Lutheran name or any other, of whom there is just reason to doubt whether he will preach the pure truth of G.o.d's Word as taught in the Confessions of our Church."

(208.) As though a sectarian minister could preach in accordance with the Lutheran symbols; or offense and unionism were fully eliminated when the sectarian minister, preaching in a Lutheran pulpit, proclaims none of his errors! The same convention held: "Lutheran ministers may properly preach wherever there is an opening in the pulpit of other churches, unless the circ.u.mstances imply, or seem to imply, a fellows.h.i.+p with error or schism, or a restriction on the unreserved expression of the whole counsel of G.o.d." (209.) But, apart from other considerations, the fact is that, as a rule, these conditions were not and could not be complied with. Furthermore, the same convention declared: "Heretics and fundamentally false teachers are to be excluded from the Lord's Table."

(209.) But the convention at Chicago, in 1870, explained: "Although the General Council holds the distinctive doctrines of our Evangelical Lutheran Church as in such sense fundamental that those who err in them err in fundamental doctrines, nevertheless, in employing the terms '_fundamental errorists_,' in the declaration made at Pittsburgh, it understands not those who are the victims of involuntary mistake, but those who wilfully, wickedly, and persistently desert, in whole or in part, the Christian faith, especially as embodied in the Confessions of the Church Catholic, in the purest form in which it now exists on earth, to wit, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and thus overturn or destroy the _foundation_ in them confessed; and who hold, defend, and extend these errors in the face of the admonitions of the Church, and to the leading away of men from the path of life." (215 f.) Accordingly, the fact that a Christian held the Reformed view on the Lord's Supper did not _per se_ exclude him from the altars of the General Council.

123. "The Rule Is."--At Akron, O., 1872, in answer to a question of the Iowa Synod referring to the declaration of 1870, Dr. Krauth, then President of the General Council, submitted the following: "1. The rule is: Lutheran pulpits are for Lutheran ministers only. Lutheran altars are for Lutheran communicants only. 2. The exceptions to the rule belong to the sphere of privilege, not of right. 3. The determination of the exceptions is to be made in consonance with these principles, by the conscientious judgment of pastors, as the cases arise." (216.) At Galesburg, 1875, the General Council declared: "The rule which accords with the Word of G.o.d and with the Confessions of our Church is: 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only--Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only.'" (217.) However, this declaration, which, for the time being, satisfied the Iowa Synod, admits of the interpretation: The exceptions are: Lutheran pulpits for non-Lutheran ministers, and Lutheran altars for non-Lutheran communicants, as was virtually admitted also by the General Council in her answer of 1877 to an appeal from the Ministerium of New York against violation of the Galesburg Rule. (217.) Returning--if indeed a return was required--to the Akron Declaration, the General Council, in 1889, stated "that at the time of the pa.s.sage of the Galesburg Rule, by the General Council, the distinct statement was made that all preceding action of the General Council on pulpit- and altar-fellows.h.i.+p was unchanged.... Inasmuch as the General Council has never annulled, rescinded, or reconsidered the declarations made at Akron, 0., in the year 1872, they still remain, in all their parts and provisions, the action and rule of the General Council. All subsequent action of the General Council is to be understood and interpreted according to the principles there determined and settled.... The present position of the General Council is to be understood and interpreted in such manner that neither the amendment and further explanation at Galesburg nor the original action at Akron be overlooked or ignored, both of which remain in full force and mutually interpret and supplement one another." (219.) Exceptionally, non-Lutherans may be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars--such, then, was the final official decision of the General Council as to the question of pulpit- and altar-fellows.h.i.+p. In the _Lutheran_ of May 3, 1917, Rev. J.E. Whitteker, president of the General Council Home Mission Board, said that it was his custom not to refuse the Lord's Supper to non-Lutherans. (_L. u. W._ 1917, 463.) Dr. J. Fry, _The Pastor's Guide_, says: "It is not considered proper to give a general invitation to persons belonging to other congregations to partic.i.p.ate in the Communion at the time when it is administered. If any public invitation is given, it should be at the time when the Communion and preparatory services are announced, and such persons be requested to make personal application to the pastor, so he may know who they are, and judge of their fitness to join in the Communion. The door should not be opened wider to strangers than to children of the household." (54.) In 1904 Dr. Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod declared: "We do not see that in the circles of the General Council, as a whole, the churchly practise has improved and become less offensive, and that earnest proceedings are inst.i.tuted against members who are guilty of offensive practise--a state of affairs which our Synod never can and will sanction." (_L. u. W._ 1904, 516.)

INTERDENOMINATIONAL FELLOWs.h.i.+P.

124. Sound Principles.--The doctrinal basis of the General Council as well as a number also of its later declarations and resolutions as to church-fellows.h.i.+p and cooperation with non-Lutherans are sound. They breathe the Lutheran spirit revealed in the manly words of C.P. Krauth: "The Lutheran Church can never have real moral dignity, real self-respect, a real claim on the reverence and loyalty of her children while she allows the fear of denominations around her, or the desire of their approval, in any respect to shape her principles or control her actions. It is a fatal thing to ask, not, What is right? What is consistent? but, What will be thought of us? How will our neighbors of the different communions regard this or that course? Better to die than to prolong a miserable life by such a compromise of all that gives life its value." (_L. u. W._ 1917, 468.) In 1909 Dr. T.E. Schmauk, then president of the General Council, declared in regard to the World's Missionary Conference: "We regret our inability, on account of our sound fundamental principle of unity as a prerequisite to cooperation, to enter in as one of the active elements in such a meeting." The committee reported: "We approve of the President's position as to the World Conference and the Federal Council." In 1913 the General Council resolved with respect to partic.i.p.ation in "The World Conference on Faith and Order": "While regretting that it is unable to unite with the Communion of the Episcopal Church in arranging for, and conducting, a Conference on Faith and Order, yet, nevertheless, it hereby resolves to appoint a Committee on the Unity of Faith, which shall be authorized, without partic.i.p.ating in organization or arrangement of any conference, to present and set forth the Lutheran faith touching particular doctrines, either independently, or when they are under discussion in any conference or gathering, without, however, granting the committee any power of a.s.sociation, arrangement, fellows.h.i.+p, or practical direction, but confining it to the one specific function of witness and testimony to the faith that is in us, and which we rejoice to confess, and to have tested, before all the world." In 1915 the General Council made the statement: "Regarding general movements in the Christian world which have arisen in the last few years looking to the drawing together of the whole Christian Church on earth, such as the movement of a free Protestantism toward a united foreign mission objective, the Federation of Churches, and other movements of a similar character, we recommend that, while we cannot at this time [sic!] organically partic.i.p.ate, it is well, nevertheless, to keep fully informed as to their trend, direction, and development." (467.) In 1917 Schmauk said in the _Lutheran_: "The Lutheran faith has suffered terribly in the past by attempts of union and cooperation with various Christian denominations and tendencies.

Usually they have penetrated insidiously into our spirit, and poisoned our own life-roots, and taken possession of our palaces. But these damages have been wrought through an attempted unity with men who are not at one with us in the profession of a _common faith_. As Luther said: 'They have a different spirit.'" (468.)

125. Facts Discounting Declarations.--Although the General Council as such has always confined its fraternal intercourse and cooperation to Lutheran synods (General Synod, United Synod South, etc.), its members and official boards have not. In 1916 several representatives of the General Council attended the Latin-America Missionary Conference, its Mission Board was connected with the "Foreign Mission Conference," a body composed of Adventists, Baptists, Quakers, Universalists, Reformed, etc. (461.) In his pamphlet, _Dangerous Alliances_, 1917, Rev. W.

Brenner, a member of the General Council, wrote: "The _Woman's Mission Worker_, the _Foreign Missionary_, and the _Home Missionary_ [periodicals of the General Council] have published letters and articles defending Lutheran partic.i.p.ation in 'union movements.' In the _Lutheran_ of September 14, 1916, Rev. C.F. Fry lauds federation in 'mission-work'

and 'Reformation celebrations.' 'On Tuesday evening pastors of non-Lutheran churches presented their greetings,' so the _Lutheran_ of November 18, 1915, describes in part the 175th anniversary celebration of St. John's Ev. Lutheran Church at Easton, Pa. Rev. E.S. Bromer, D.D., of the Reformed Church, addressed the congregation of the First Lutheran Church of Greensburg, Pa., on the occasion of its hundredth anniversary.

(_Lutheran_, Nov. 18, 1915.) Emmanuel Lutheran Church of the Augustana Synod laid the corner-stone of a new church edifice, November 12, 1916, at b.u.t.te, Mont. 'Brief congratulatory speeches were made by Hon. C.H.

Lane, mayor of b.u.t.te, and the Rev. J.H. Mitch.e.l.l, chairman of b.u.t.te's Ministerial a.s.sociation.' (_Lutheran_, Nov. 30, 1916.) We have also read of Anti-Saloon League representatives, and Women's Christian Temperance lecturers, mal