Movement Elsewhere Before 1840

2. Movement Elsewhere Before 1840

In the neighborhood of Züllichau, Juliusburg, and Strehlen the Separate Lutheran movement began, without special interference by the clergy, in lay circles holding services and prayehmeetinge. On Apt. 4,1834, three pastors, four theological candi- dates, and thirty-nine laymen united in a synod at Breslau and solemnly protested against the violation of the rights granted to the Lutheran Church in Prussia. A petition sent

82
by them to the authorities in Berlin was flatly refused, and the cabinet orders of Mar. 9 and 10, 1834, in which the State had prepared for the struggle, were now executed. The first was directed against "conventicles," and the second against the " unauthorized administration of spiritual official acts "; while the third referred to the obligation of all Evangelical parents to send their children to Evangelical schools. The church services of the Lutherans were suppressed, the official seta of their clergy were declared invalid, and no child was permitted to leave school before he had been confirmed by a clergyman of the Evangelical State Church. These and other oppressive measures only spread the movement. In 1835 another synod was formed at Breslau, but all clergymen participating in it were imprisoned. Some congregations even found themselves compelled to emigrate; a part of them went to Australia under the leadership of their pastors Navel and Fritzsche and formed the nucleus of the Lutheran Church of Australia; others followed Grabau to North America where they entered the Buffalo Synod (see below, III., 5, § 2). The king was deeply grieved at the outcome of his measures, yet he could not make up his mind to annul them and grant the Lutheran congregations their right of existence.

It was only after Frederick William IV. had ascended the throne in 1840 that conditions became more favorable for the Old Lutherans. One of the new ruler's first measures was to release the imprisoned Lutheran ministers, and at the request of the government, after some preliminary negotiations, the Lutherans presented a memorial on the

conditions under which the Evangel 8, AO,,, ical Lutheran Church was to be so-

sioa of knowledged as legal by the Prussian Frederick State. Before an answer had arrived,

William however, the first public Old-Lutheran

General Synod met on Sept. 15, 1841. It established a comprehensive church order which is still in force in all essentials. The governmeht of all churches was entrusted to a board of clergy and laity. A General Synod, meeting every four years, was to form the supreme court of appeal, to which the ecclesiastical board was also responsible. In 1841 the first attempt was made at a synodical constitution of the Lutheran Church upon German soil, and thin organization found a certain measure of recognition by the State in the so-called general concession of July 23, 1845. The dissenting congregations were freed from taxes payable to the State Church, and the official acts of their clergy were recognized by the State, but their places of worship were not recognized as churches. In a special concession of Aug. 7, 1847, the board in Breslau was also officially recognized, and twenty-one congregations in the provinces of Silesia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Prussia, Posen, and Saxony were granted corporate rights. At the meeting of the General Synod in 1860 the total number of 18,644 members in 1845 had increased to 55,017 in sixty-two parochial districts, with sixty-three ministers, thirty-four Lutheran schools, and forty-four teachers.

At the same synod a discord arose which shook

the Lutheran Church in Prussia to its depths and led to a fatal schism, the question concerning the

importance of church government. 4. Schism Several ministers were not willing to of 1880. recognize church government as an

organic part of the Church. The General Synod of 1860 did not fully decide the question, but referred it to a committee for further investigation. Diedrich, the schismatic Old-Lutheran pastor at Jabel, with his congregatibn soon renounced the supervision of the ecclesiastical board. A conference in Berlin in Oct., 1861, tried in vain to remove the difficulties in the doctrine of church government. A number of preachers aided with Diedrich and accused the ecclesiastical board of false doctrine. The rupture became irremediable when, on July 21, 1864, these preachers under the leadership of Diedrich organized a special body, the Immanuel Synod (see below). In a "Public declaration concerning the disputed doctrines of the Church, the church government and the church orders," issued in 1864, the ecclesiastical board stated that the external institutional aide of the Church could not be separated from its essence and conception, although the church government with regard to its special formation is baged upon human right. In recent times the Lutheran Church, subject to the ecclesiastical board in Breslau, has recovered from the shock of the schism caused by the separation of the Immanuel Synod. In 1883 there was established a theological seminary. The Church possesses also its own institution for deaconesses, a pension fund for old pastors, for the widows of pastors, and 140 churches. It numbers about 51,600 members in sixty-four parishes with seventy-five ministers. The Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Synod was formed in 1864 at Magdoburg, by Ehlers, Diedrich, and other preachers in consequence of the disputes on church government that had arisen within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia. Its leading idea is that the pastors as the sole incumbents of the spiritual office are bound to care for the church orders, and that the laity can freely take part in synods, with no restriction in number; the synod has properly no power of discipline over the ministers. The general concession of the State did not apply to the congregations of the Immanuel Synod, because they no longer were under the board of dissenting Lutherans recognized by the special concession of 1847. Consequently they had no corporate rights, and the official seta of their pastors had no validity before the State, but the civil law of 1874 removed the latter disability. The synod numbers about 5,300 persons, with thirteen ministers.

2. Elsewhere: The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hessian lands originated in the opposition of the strictly Lutheran clergy to the new united church constitution introduced into the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt Jan: 6,

1874. It is true, the Union had been 1. Churches practically introduced into several

in Hesse. parts of the country since 1822, but

the pastors of a stricter confessional tendency had united since 1851 for the defense of their old rights. A synodical institution pub-

fished in 1870 tried to unite all congregations without regard to confession. Seven protesting Lutheran ministers were deposed from office (June 25, 1875). Consequently they separated from the State Church and formed five congregations. In 1877 they formed a synod. In 1878 their number was augmented by confederation with a part of the dissenters in Lower Hesse, the so-called "Homberg Konvent." In 1880 both church bodies united with the Lutheran Free Church in Hanover, and by a complete union of the congregations of HeaseDarmatadt with those of the Homberg Konvent into one church body there came into being the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hessian lands which comprises now about 1,800 members with ten parishes and ten ministers. An ordinance for the organization of a common consietory for the Lutheran, Reformed, and Union Churches in the district of Cassel on June 13, 1868, called forth the protest of many clergymen. When it was actually established in 1873, forty-two Reformed preachers of Lower Hesse under the leadership of Vihnar and Hoffmann as well as one Lutheran preacher is Upper Hesse refused to be subject to the new consistory, and adhered to the old Hessian church order. The consistory applied the severest measures, fines, suspension, and deposition, against the dissenting pastors. A few only being supported by their congregations, they were forced to emigrate. Those remaining in Hesse were forbidden to officiate until a decree of the higher tribunal in 1876 declared the deposed preachers laymen as regards the State, and thus protected their official acts against the decrees of punishment of the penal code. The Nonconformist Church of Lower Hesse comprises now about 2,400 members.

The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Hanover had its origin in the ecclesiastical struggles due to the annexation of the kingdom of Hanover and the danger of the Prussian Union. 2. Churches in spite of the promise of King Williiam Hanover to maintain the existing order, the and Baden. Union made great progress. Open hostilities broke out on the occasion of the change in the wording of the marriage contract in connection with the introduction of the civil status law. in 1876. A number of clergymen under the leadership of Harms in Hermannsburg refused to use the new wording, seeing in it a denial of what he conceived to be the Christian nature of marriage. In 1878 they separated from the State Church and founded the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Hanover. It is governed on the basis of the Luneburg church order by a board composed of clergy and laity. There are at present eight parishes with about 3,050 members and ten ministers. The Hermannsburg Free Church originated from a split in the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Hanover. It numbers about 2,800 members and two ministers. In the grand duchy of Baden the confessional union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches was executed in 1821 without opposition. Only the awakening faith in Germany and the Lutheran movement instigated by LShe in Bavaria created in Baden also a desire for a clear and unambiguous confession of the Lutheran Church. Karl Eichhorn, a preacher in Nuesloch, started a Luther an movement which led to the formation of small Lutheran congregations which soon petitioned for recognition, but were flatly refused. Eichhorn was repeatedly thrown into prison and finally banished into a remote place, but the Lutheran movement increased from year to year, and at last, in 1856, toleration was granted to its adherents. The con gregations in Baden number about 1,330 members.

The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Sax ony and other states has an entirely different char acter from that of the other Lutheran free church in Germany. While the others were called forth more or leas by the opposition against 8. Churches the Union, this Fry Church was in Saxony. formed in the midst of Lutheran territories, partly even of such as had separated already from the State Church on so count of the Union. It stands in connection with the Missouri Synod in America (see below, II., 5, § 1), and declares all other Lutheran state and free churches unfaithful to the confession. The occa sion for the formation of the Free Church in Sax ony was the change into a mere vow of the oath of religion binding upon Lutherans. Many pro tested against this change, seeing in It a concession to infidelity. On the recommendation of Walther, I~ the leading spirit of the Missouri Synod, an asso ciation of strict Lutherans called Ruland from America to Saxony, who in the most violent man ner criticized the defects of the Saxon State Church and made separation from it as well as from all other State Churches a duty of conscience. On

Nov. 6, 1876, all dissenting congregations in Saa ony united to form the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Saxony and other states. The addition "and other states" shows that this Fry Church intends to gather around its banner the strict Lu therans from all Lutheran churches in Germany.

At the end of 1901 it numbered about 2,230 mem bers and seven pastors in Saxony, and 1,350 mem bers with eight pastors outside of Saxony. Be sides these free churches in Germany there are also congregations that arose frequently only from local conflicts with the State Church. The common aim of all free churches to found the church on Holy Scripture and the Lutheran confession alone can easily be justified; for this was the aim of the Reformation and is in harmony with the early Christian Church. The form of royal supremacy over the Protestant Church seems to be irrecon cilable with the modern State, but it is also feared that the Lutheran ChurCh; unless it Were a State Church, might lose its hold upon the people, but the development of the Lutheran Church in North America shows that this is not necessarily the case. (G. FaoeOes.)

III. Lutherans in America: 1. Early Settlements: According to the testimony of the Jesuit Isaac Jogues in the year 1643 Lutherans were living in Manhattan (New Amsterdam-New York) along with Calvinists, Puritans and Ansbaptista. The recognized religion of the colony of New Netherlands was the strict Calvinism of the Synod of Dort, and the Lutherans were treated

Lutheran,

harshly, 'especially by Peter Stuyveeant, the general director. Their children had to be brought to Calvin-

ietic preachers for baptism, and they 1. Dutch were forced to accept the doctrines of Lutherans. the Synod of Dort. The Lutherans were

fined and imprisoned even for . holding informal services for the reading of the Word of God. They applied to the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Holland for better treatment and to the Lutheran oonaiatory in Amsterdam for a faithful Lutheran pastor. The Rev. John Ernest Goetwater arrived on June 8, 1857, in America., but through the influence of the Calvinistic preachers Megalopolenais and Drisius was forbidden to exercise his ministry and forced to return to Europe. When New Amsterdam was captured by the British in 1664 the Lutherans secured freedom in matters of worship and discipline. In the year 1889 Jacob Fabricius had been sent over from Holland, but his ministry in New York was a disappointment. He was succeeded by Bernhard Anton Arensius (1671-91) who also served the Lutherans at Albany. As no additional preachers could be obtained from Amsterdam, the New York Lutherans (1701) applied to the Lutheran Swedes on the Delaware, who sent Andreas Rudman (July, 1702). He recommended as his successor Justus Falekner (born 1872 in Saxony) who was ordained for the Lutheran ministry by Rudman, Bjoerk, and Sandal in the Swedish Church at Philadelphia in Nov., 1703--a German, ordained by Swedes to serve a Dutch congregation in Americal His parish included the territory from New York to Albany on both aides of the Hudson and on Long Island. After his death, 1723, the Lutheran Connietory of Amsterdam at the request of the New York congregation sent as his successor in 1725 Wilhelm Christoph Berkenmeyee (born 1688 in Lüneburg, died 1751) a man of great energy and the strictest adherence to the Lutheran Confessions. Under, his pastorate and that of his successor Michael Knoll the transition was made in the Lutheran congregations in New York from the Dutch to the German and English languages.

Through William Usselina of Antwerp the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus had been sufficiently interested in the New World to grant a charter to the "South Company" in Stockholm (June 14, 1628) which, in addition to its work of colonization,

was, from the very beginning, to un Jd. Swed1 h dertake the propagation of the Gospel Lutherans. on this Western Continent. After the

death of the king his great chancellor Osenatierna continued to work for the realization of the plan. Peter Minuit, general director of New Netherlands, joined in the Swedish enterprise and sailed two Swedish vessels into the Delaware river (1838) where Fort Christina was built and an extensive territory was purchased from the Iroquois Indiana. Reorua Torkillua was the first Lutheran pastor in New Sweden (died 1643). He was euoneeded by John Campanius, who had arrived with Governor Johan Priatz. He consecrated the first Lutheran church in the new world, on the island of Tinicum, near Philadelphia. He also translated Luther's Smaller Catechism into the language of

the Indiana. He returned to Sweden in May, 1848, where he died in 1883. When the Dutch took possession of New Swedes, the adherents of the Augaburg Confession obtained the guaranty of their religious liberties (1655). This was also secured to them when the British occupied New Sweden (1674). During the last quarter ~of the seventeenth century the Swedish Lutherans on the Delaware were much neglected, until King Charles IX. sent them such pastors as Rudman, Erik Bjoerk, and Jonas Auren. These were followed by other godly men, such as Karl Magnus Wrangel, whose name occurs again in the history of the German Lutherans, and Israel Acrelius, author of the History of New Suxdxn. (English by Dr. W. M. Reynolds, Philadelphia, 1874). All these pastors sent over from Sweden were salaried by the king and, as a rule, returned to their native church after a few years of American service. The last among them, Nils Collie, arrived in America in 1771. Under him the union with the Swedish mother church was formally dissolved. He took Episcopal ministers for his assistants and thus opened the way for the use by these Swedish Lutheran Churches of the English language and their transition into the communion of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He died in 1831.

William Penn had visited Germany in 1671 and 1677 with a view to obtaining rattlers for his young American colony, Pennsylvania. It was not the interest of trade and commerce, as in the case of the Dutch, nor the colonial policy of far-seeing statesmen, as in the case of the Swedes, that brought the German immigration to America,

8. German but foremost the desire of unlimited Lutherans. freedom of worship, and the insecurity of life and property under the constant raids of their French neighbors from which particularly the Palatinate had to suffer. The first German colony, under the leadership of Frank Paatorius, arrived in 1883 and founded Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia. These first immigrants, however, consisted mostly of eeparatiatic elements. There was one isolated German Lutheran congregation in New Hanover, some thirty-five miles from Philadelphia, whose origin can be traced as far back as 1703. With the beginning of the eighteenth century the German immigration assumed larger dimensions. Lutherans and Reformed crossed the ocean in considerable numbers, and there are now more regularity and vitality in the newly established Lutheran congregations. A number of Lutheran immigrants under Pastor Joshua Kocherthal (d. 1719) from Landau (Palatinate) arrived in 1709 in New York and settled on the Hudson above West Point. There they founded the town of Newburg, for which they had received a grant of 2,200 acres of land, 500 of which were to be devoted to church purposes. During the summer of 1709 Kocherthal returned to England to obtain additional favors. and privileges for his colonists. Of the thousands of German emigrants from the Palatinate, Alsace, and Württemberg, that had been kept by the British government on "Black Heath," about 3,000 were brought to America in 1710, where they settled on both shores of the Hudson river at the

foot of the Catskill Mountains. In 1712 hundreds of them wandered northward to the Schoharie, where they were kindly received by the Indiana. Eleven years afterward a considerable number of these colonists turned southward along the Susquehanna river to found new homes in Pennsylvania. Kocherthal'n successors in the service of the German congregations in the State of New York were Justus Falckner, Wilhelm Christoph Berkenmeyer, and Michael Knoll, who at the same time ministered to the Dutch Lutherans. Isolated groups of German Lutherans with modest beginnings of congregational organization are found in the eighteenth century along the whole Atlantic coast as far as Georgia, in New Jersey, Virginia, North and South Carolina. Moat prominent among them was the colony of Lutheran Salzburgera in Georgia, near Savannah. A number of the Salzburg Lutherans who were expelled by Archbishop Firmian, in 1731, had been recommended to the English court and were offered moat favorable terms by the British government. They embarked at Rotterdam in the fall of 1733, with two pastors, John Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau. Governor Oglethorpe gave them a hearty welcome and they established the colony of Ebenezer, about twenty-five miles inland from Savannah. Wesley and Whitefield took a kindly interest in those immigrants and gave them material support. In eastern Pennsylvania up to the middle of the eighteenth century some 30,000 German Lutherans had settled, for whose spiritual wants there was, at first, no adequate provision. Much disorder and offense was caused by unworthy subjects who assumed the office of the ministry without proper call and qualification. In order to secure faithful ministers three congregations, New Hanover, New Providence (Trappe), and Philadelphia united in an application to Friedrich Michael Ziegenhagen, court preacher at St. James' Chapel, London, and Gotthilf August Francke in Halls. Negotiations were carried on in an extended correspondence, from 1734 to 1739. In the year 1741 Count Ludwig Zinzendorf arrived and, under the name of Herr von Thuernatein, offered his services to the Lutherans in Pennsylvania as " Evangelical-Lutheran inspector and pastor." He secured a call from a number of German Lutherans in Philadelphia, to whom he preached his famous "Pennsylvania discourses." John Christopher Pyrhieus, whom he had appointed as a substitute in his place, was violently expelled by the Lutherans in 1742. In the fall of the same year there appeared Valentin Kraft, formerly pastors in Zweibruecken, Palatinate, a man of questionable character, whore activity among the German Lutherans helped to increase the general confusion.

B.Orgsniastion reader Xuhlenberg: Henry Melchior Mühlenberg (q.v.) was encouraged by Dr. Francke in Halls to accept the call to Pennsylvania, Sept. 6,1741. In April, 1742, he arrived in London where the formal vocation from the three Pennsylvania congregations was handed to him by Frederick Michael Ziegenhagen. Living London on June il he arrived in Charleston, S. C., Sept. 23, 1742, as he had been commissioned to visit the Salzburg colonies in Georgia. He reached Philadelphia Nov. 25, and at once proceeded to New Hanover and New Providence. In Philadelphia he preached his first sermon Dec. 5, and three weeks afterward was formally recognized as the right s. Pre- ful Pastor of the Lutheran congrega- liminary tics. Heat once curbed the preten Labors. aloes of Valentin Kraft and also succeeded in maintaining in a dignified manner his position against Count Zinzendorf, who attempted to call him to account in the presence of the officers of the Lutheran Church of Philadelphia. The magistrate of the city ordered Zinzendorf to give up the records and communion vessels of the Lutherans, and the count left the city and the country Jan. 1, 1743. Now Mühlenberg's work of church-organization began under many difficulties. The three congregations from whom he had a direct call were thirty-five miles apart, and to nerve them regularly with the means of grace involved many hardships and dangers. An soon as the influence of his work of organization became known, his services in removing difficulties and restoring order were asked by other congregations, each as Tulpehocken, Germantown, Lancaster, and York. In the spring of 1743 the cornerstone of St. Michael's Church in Philadelphia, and that of the Augustus Church (Trappe) were laid. The latter church is still standing and clone to its walls Mühlenberg is buried. Until the time of the revolutionary war the directors of the Francke institutions at Halls, together with Dr. Ziegenhagen in London, had full control of the congregations organized by Mühlenberg and his colaborera who were tent after him from Halls. Regular reports were rent over to Halls and were published under the title "Halls Reports of the United German Evangelical Lutheran Congregations in North America, particularly Pennsylvania" (1744-87, new ed., with valuable historical annotations and additions, ed. Drs. W. J. Mann, B. M. Schmucker, and W. Germane, Allentown, Pa., 1888). The most important step taken by Mühlenberg for the permanent organization of the Lutheran Church on this continent was the founding of the Synod of Pennsylvania, Aug. 28, 1748. There were present on this occasion the Swedish Provost Sandin and Pastors Hartwig of New York, Mühlenberg, Brunnholtz, Handschuh, and Kurz, who was ordained at this first meeting.

The character of this first synodical organization was, .however, in the beginning rather loose and informal. No regular constitution was adopted, not even a formal election of a presiding officer. As a matter of course the position of leadet8. Charac- ship was accorded to Mühlenberg. ter of the The Collegium pastorum received the

Criranisa- reports and requests of the lay delegates tics. and acted on them. The latter had no vote, which was accorded to them only in the year 1792. The relation between the ministers and the lay element was one of patriarchal or apostolic simplicity. The unselfish devotion and faithfulness, the pastoral wisdom and experience of the leading men above all, of Mühlenberg himself, secured the full confidence of the congregations, without any fear of hierarchical presumptions or aggressions on the part of the ministers. The

Lutherans doctrinal and confessional position of those fathers was unequivocally that of the historical standards of the Lutheran Church. The liturgy, adopted at the first meeting of the synod, which was made obligatory for all pastors and congregations, was based on the Saxon and North German orders with which Muhlenberg had been familiar in Germany, each as those of Luneburg 1564, Calenberg 1569, Saxony 1712, and Brandenburg-Magdeburg 1739. From 1748 to 1786 this first Pennsylvania agenda existed only in manuscript form. From 1754 to 1760 no regular meetings were held and the young synod seemed to be threatened with extinction. But in 1760, particularly through the influence of the Swedish Provost Karl Magnus Wrangel, the intimate friend of Mühlenberg, the body was revived and from that time on there is no break in its regular meetings. The constitution of the Evangelical Lutheran Miniaterium of North America gradually took shape and was entered in the minute book in the year 1781. In those years Mühlenberg also prepared the first constitution for the mother congregation in Philadelphia (St. Michael's) which was formally adopted in 1762 and became the model for most of the Lutheran congregations in the East, giving the administration of congregational affairs into the hands of the church council, consisting of pastors, elders, and deacons. In 1766 Mühlenberg encouraged the Philadelphia congregation to undertake the erection of a new church, Zion's, which was completed in 1769, and, with its 2,500 sittings, was considered the largest and moat beautiful sanctuary in North America. In this building Congress held its memorial service for George Washington. Before the death of Mühlenberg the second Lutheran Synod in America, the Ministerium of New York, was founded by his son, Frederick August Conrad Mühlenberg, pastor of the German Lutheran Christ Church in New York City (1773). Mühlenberg'a son-in-law, the scholarly John Christopher Kunze (q.v.), took a leading position in this body, over which he presided from 1785 till his death in 1807.

8. Period of Deterioration, 1787-1820: The prevailing rationalism of the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century did not affect the Lutheran Church of North America quite as strongly as it did the churches of England and Germany. With few exceptions

1. Effects the Lutheran pastors in America adof Ration- hered to the confession of Christ, the alism. Son of God, and the Word of the Cross.

The traveling preachers of the mother synod did active missionary work in the West and Southwest, organizing congregations and conferences which formed the nucleus for new synods in Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland, and western Pennsylvania. Among the tracts and religious literature which they distributed the Augsburg Confession had a prominent place. The parish schools were numerous and in flourishing condition. In the year 1820 not less than 206 parochial schools are reported by eighty-four congregations of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. Nevertheless, there were unmistakable signs that the strict confeaeionalism of the early Lutherans was beginning to weaken and to yield to indifferentism and subjectivism. The altered constitution of the Pennsylvania Miniaterium of 1792 made no reference to the confessional standards, though the pastors continued to pledge their adherence to the symbolical books at their ordination. After Kunze's death Frederick Henry Quitmann became the leader of the New York Miniaterium. He was a pupil of Semler, a decided adherent of the common rationalism, and it was through his influence that the old Lutheran Catechisms, Hymn-books, and Agenda gave way to modern publications, which were to have "due regard to the needs of the rising generation." The same tendency manifested itself in Pennsylvania, where the Hymnbook of 1817 ( Des Geniei.:nschaftliche Gesangliuch) for the use of Lutheran and Reformed Churches, and the Agenda of 1818 represented a complete falling away not only from the historical, conservative order of service, but also from positive Lutheran doctrine, in the orders for baptism, communion, and ordination. In 1797 the New York Miniaterium resolved that, on account of the close relation between the Lutheran and Protestant Episcopal Church and their ' similarity of doctrine, it would never recognize an English Lutheran church in a locality where the services of the Episcopal church could be attended by the Lutherans. This resolution, which was, however, cancelled after seven years, revealed the strong antagonism of the Germans to the English language.

The conflicts arising in this period through the transition from the use of German to that of English greatly retarded the progress and healthy development of the Lutheran Church. In New York the English became the official language of the minieterium in the year 1807 and held that position until 1866, when at the formation of the General Council, the English element ee-

2. Change ceded and the German took the lead. In Lan. In Philadelphia the language contro- gnase. versy led to a split in the mother congregation. The English element, under the leadership of Peter Mühlenberg, had demanded the appointment of a third pastor who should officiate in the English language. This request being refused, St. John's Church was organized in 1806 as the first English Lutheran congregation. The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the decision of which had been asked in the language controversy, resolved in 1805 forever to remain a German-speaking body. But it recommended the formation of English congregations and provided for their admission into the synod on condition that they accept its constitution. In other towns of Pennsylvania the language difficulty adjusted itself in a more peaceful manner. The German congregations first became German-English, with two j pastors for the two languages. Gradually the English gained the ascendency and dismissed the German element with sufficient financial assistance, so that new German churches could be built. By this peaceable process of transition the descendants of the old Lutheran families were retained in the church of their fathers, in the English language, while in Philadelphia multitudes were lost to the

English denominations of another faith. The national and linguistic feeling was stronger with the Germans than their ecclesiastical and Lutheran consciousness. They felt themselves nearer to the Reformed Germans than to the English-speaking Lutherans, and the venerable Charles Frederick Schaeffer (q.v.) of New York voiced the general sentiment when he said, in a letter addressed to the Pennsylvania Synod in 1819, that " as the Lutherans and Reformed in Germany had been brought together in one united church, so the true Germans in America should, in this respect, follow the example of the Germans in Germany."

4. The General Synod: At this critical period in the history of the Lutheran Church in America the first steps were taken toward the formation of a Lutheran General Synod, in order to stop the threatening disintegration, to unite more firmly the scattered members of the Lutheran

1. Organization

Church on this continent, and to secure and for her a recognized position. The

Purpose. mother synod of Pennsylvania took the initiative at its convention in Har risburg, 1818. An organization was effected in Hagerstown, Pa., in 1820, and in the following year the first regular convention was held in Frederick, Md., the Synods of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Maryland=Virginia being represented. New York sent no delegates until 1837. Ohio and Ten nessee stood aloof. Pennsylvania withdrew again in 1823, yielding to the unreasonable anxiety of some of its country congregations who feared the danger of hierarchical oppression on the part of the general body. Thus, for eight years the General Synod consisted of the small synods of North Caro lina, Maryland-Virginia, and West Pennsylvania. The Hartwick Synod, in the State of New York, entered in 1831, the synod of South Carolina in 1835; New York in 1837. At all times the Gen eral Synod represented only a minority of Lu therans in America. For a considerable period the mother synod of Pennsylvania alone outnum bered the general body. The General Synod undoubtedly was a courageous and determined at tempt to perpetuate the Lutheran Church and to give her a standing and recognition in America, such as she had not enjoyed before. It succeeded in organizing the educational and missionary work of the church. The establishment of the theological seminary in Gettysburg, the sending of a dele gation to Germany to rouse the sympathies of the fatherland and to collect contributions for the Lu theran Church in America, the formation of the Parental Educational Society, the Central Mission ary Society, and the Foreign Missionary Society were measures of the highest importance, looking to the vital interests of the Lutheran Church in her new western home. There was, from the begin ning, an element that sought to remain in contact with the faith of the fathers and the historical Lu theran Church and manifested a certain consciousness and appreciation of the peculiar gifts and responsibilities of the Lutheran Church and an endeavor to assert and preserve her individual character. But then these was, on the other side, a broad and powerful current of unionism and indifferentism which declared, in an official communication to the Evangelical Church in Germany (1845): "In most of our church principles we stand on common ground with the Union Church of Germany. The distinctive doctrines which separate the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches we do not consider essential. The tendency of the socalled old Lutheran party seems to us to be behind the time. Luther's peculiar views concerning the presence of the Lord's body in the communion have long been abandoned by the majority of our ministers." While in the Pennsylvania Synod, during the thirty years of its separation from the General Synod, a more conservative and churchly spirit had gradually gained the ascendancy, it nevertheless maintained friendly relations with the General Synod. On several occasions approaches were made by prominent men of the General Synod toward the restoration. of the union. The Penn sylvania Liturgy and Hymn-Book were adopted by the General Synod. And the Pennsylvania Synod endowed a professorship in Pennsylvania College,

Gettysburg, belonging to the General Synod. Thus the way was prepared for the formal return of the mother synod to the General Synod, which took place in 1853. The step was taken in the hope of strengthening the conservative element in the Gen eral Synod and with the reservation, that " should at any time the General Synod violate its constitution and require of our synod, or of any synod, as a condition of admission to or continuation of mem bership, assent to anything conflicting with the old and long-established faith of the Evangelical

Lutheran Church, then our delegates are hereby required to protest against such action, to with draw from its sessions, and to report to this body."

In order to define more clearly the position of

American Lutheranism, which was claimed to be the position of the General Synod in its majority,

Samuel Simon Schmucker published in 1855 the

Lutheran Manual, an American recension of the

Augsburg Confession, the " Definite

2. Dissenbent Move.

Platform," in which the seven articles on abuses are entirely omitted, and of manta. the twenty-one doctrinal articles twelve are more or less altered, particularly those treating of the sacraments. The effect of this publication was a disappointment to the au thor and his party. It opened' the eyes even of the indifferent and undecided ones and caused them to reflect. On all aides strong protests arose against this attack on the venerable Augustana. Only a few Western synods adopted the " Definite plat form." While, even then, an open rupture was for the time avoided, the "Definite Platform" cer tainly hastened the crisis in the General Synod.

During the Civil War the Southern churches had withdrawn and established the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Confed erate States of America, j1863). The second, far more important rupture dates from the convention of the General Synod in York, Pa., 1864. The

Franckean Synod, New York State, applied for ad mission into the General Synod. It had never formally adopted the Augsburg Confession, and had been declared Sabellian and Pelagian by the

civil courts. It was received into the General Synod by a vote of ninety-seven to forty. The Pennsylvania delegation protested and withdrew. A number of delegates from other synods joined in the protest of the Pennsylvanians. To avoid the threatening rupture the doctrinal basis of the General Synod was amends so as to recognize the Augsburg Confession as a correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word, and of the faith of the Church founded upon that Word. But the important question, which doctrines were to be considered as fundamental, remained open, most of the American Lutherans considering the distinctive doctrines that separated Lutherans and Reformed as non-fundamental. The action at York was answered by the Pennsylvania Minieterium in the establishment of her own theological seminary at Philadelphia, in July, 1864 (first faculty: Drs. C. F. Schaeffer, W. J. Mann, C. P. Krauth, C. W. Schaeffer, G. F. Krotel; present faculty: A. Spaeth, H. E. Jacobs, J. Fry, G. F. Spieker). The Pennsylvania Miniaterium, still considering itself a member of the General Synod, appointed delegates to represent it at the next convention of the General Synod in Fort Wayne, 1886. Here the final crisis occurred through the action of the presiding officer, S. S. Sprecher, who refused to accept the credentials of the Pennsylvania delegates when the roll of the synods was called, declaring that synod to be " out of practical union with the General Synod." Nothing was left to the delegation but to withdraw again and to report to their ministerium, which now formally severed its connection with the General Synod and issued a fraternal letter, inviting all Evangelical Lutheran Synods in the United States and Canada to unite in the formation of a new general body, " first and supremely for the maintenance of unity in the true faith of the Gospel, and in the uncorrupted Sacraments, as the Word of God teaches and our Church confesses them; and furthermore for the preservation of her genuine spirit and worship, and for the development of her practical life in all its forms." In response to this fraternal address the " heading Convention " was held, in Dec., 1868, at which Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Pittsburg, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Canada, the Norwegian Synod, and the Sweden were represented. The " Fundamental Articles of Faith and Church Polity," drawn up by Charles Porterfield Krauth, were discussed and unanimously adopted. The organization of " The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America " was resolved.

At present the following synods belong to the General Synod: Maryland, West Pennsylvania, Hartwiok. East Ohio, Frenclcean (N. Y.). Allegheny (Pa.), East Pennsylvania, Miami (Ohio), Wittenberg (Ohio), Olive Branch (Ind., Ky., Teen.). Northern Illinois, Central Pennsylvania, Iowa, Northern Indiana, Pittsburg (W. Pa.), Susquehanna (N. E. Pa.), Kansas, Nebraska, New York and New Jersey, Wartburg (German, West and South), California. Rocky Mountain (Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming). Nebraska (German), Central Illinois, Southern Illinois, numbering s total of 1,322 ministers, 1,734 congregations. 288.489 com municants. The General Synod has b theological seminaries with 22 professors and 103 students. It has foreign mission stations in the Telugu land, East India, and in Liberia, Fast Africa, with 80 missionaries, 550 native helpers,

34,053 native Christians, 10,500 pupils in mission schools, and 3,900 candidates for baptism.

6. Confessional Lutherans is the West: About s quarter of a century before the revival of confessional Lutheranism in the General Synod led to disruption and to the organization of the General Council, Lutheran immigrants from Saxony, Prussia, and Bavaria, who had left the fatherland on account of their faith, undertook the foundation of strictly Lutheran bodies, which, though frequently engaged in sharp controversies, were remarkably successful in gathering the large Lutheran population of the West into strong ecclesiastical organizations.

In the month of Nov., 1838, hundreds of earnest Lutherans, under the leadership of Martin Stephen, pastor of the Bohemian Church at Dresden, resolved to emigrate to America.' The hopeless condition of their home church, the opposition to the

Lutheran confession, and the preva- 1. The lance of rationalism, drove those peo- Synod of plc out of their native land where they Missouri. despaired of seeing their ideal of the

Church realized. Stephen was distinguished by his remarkable eloquence in the pulpit, his knowledge of men, and his pastoral ability in dealing with souls in a state of despondency under severe spiritual trials. Though he had had difficulties with the ecclesiastical authorities in Saaony, no charges had affected his character. His adherents had absolute confidence in him and trusted him not only with their spiritual guidance but even with the administration of their worldly possessions. They numbered altogether about 700 persons, among them several faithful pastors of the Lutheran Church in Saxony, like O. H. Walther, C. F. W. Walther, E. G. W. Keyl, and G. H. Locher. One of the vessels on which the immigrants embarked was lost at sea with all on board. The others landed in Jan., 1839, at New Orleans and settled in St. Louie and in Parry Co., Mo. Soon after their arrival Stephen was found to be unworthy, guilty of defalcation and gross immorality. They cast him off, and Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (q.v.) became their principal leader. When the catastrophe of Stephen's exposure overwhelmed the Saxon immigrants, and they themselves .were in doubt, whether they still were a Christian Church and their pastors real officers of the. church by divine right, it was Walther who brought light and encouragement to the downcast little band. He founded the semimonthly Dar Lutheraner and later on the theological monthly Lehre and Wehre. By means of these publications he gathered a number of like-minded men, and prepared the way for the organization of the synod of Missouri, which met for the first time in Chicago, Ill., Apr. 26, 1847. In the same year the educational institution founded by W. Loehe in Fort Wayne, Ind., was transferred to the synod of Missouri, and the theological seminary of the Saxon immigrants in Parry Co. was moved to St. Louis, where Walther became the head of the faculty. From the very beginning the synod of Missouri placed itself on the foundation of the Lutheran confessions as contained in the Book of Concord of 1580, rejecting all kinds

of unionism and syncretism with those of another faith. Continued doctrinal discussions at synods, conferences, and congregational meetings, regular visitations of the churches, and the faithful training of the children in their parochial schools were the means of not only holding the synod itself firmly together in one spirit, but also of enlarging it rapidly in every direction. Special emphasis was laid on the rights of the congregation, and all "High-church" ideas concerning the ministry were repudiated. The authority of the synod in its relation to the congregations is advisory in character. The right of vote at synodical meetings is confined to the delegates of congregations and to those pastors who actually serve congregations in full connection with the synod. All other pastors, teachers, and professors are only advisory members. The wisdom and consistency of Walther's management proved a powerful attraction, which succeeded in overcoming and assimilating even antagonistic elements. At its second convention the synod numbered fifty-five ministers, among them many who had enjoyed a thorough theological training at. German universities, who knew how to adapt themselves admirably to their new American environments, and who worked together with the greatest personal devotion and self-denial. In 1909 the synod of Missouri extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil. Including the English Synod (1888) and the Slovak Synod (1902) it numbered 2,086 ministers, 2,584 congregations, 498,409 communicants. It had two theological seminaries with 12 professors and 396 students.

The Missouri Synod in Brazil.-In the year 1899 Pastor Brutschin of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, applied to the synod of Missouri with the request that pastors be sent to that territory. The General Committee for Home Missions of the Missouri Synod sent C. J. Broilers to examine the field in 1900. He was followed by,other pastors in 1901 who took up the work in the interest of the Missouri Synod in the district of San Lorenzo. In the year 1902 W. Mahler, henceforth the leader of the Missouri pastors in Brazil, established himself in Porto Allegre. In 1903 the publication of a periodical in the interest of the Missouri Synod was undertaken and an institution founded for the training of pastors and teachers, which, after a temporary interruption, was reopened at Porto Allegre in 19_07. In 1904 the synod of Brazil was organized as a sepa_ rate district of the Missouri Synod. It numbers at present 20 pastors, ministering to 8,251souls, including 3,943 communicants, and 1,234 voting members. In Europe (Germany and Denmark) the Missouri Synod numbers 29 pastors, in Australia, in two districts, 38 pastors, in New Zealand 3 pastors.

Following the Saxon emigrants, in 1839 another band of German Lutherans left their home on socount of their faith and started for America. Their leader was Johann Andreas August

8. The Grabau, bore 1804 near Magdeburg, Pastor of St. And rew'sChurchatErfurt. He had been repeatedly imprisoned on account of his opposition to the Prus sian Union and to the introduction of the king's Agenda. About 1,000 adherents followed him, the Lutherans moat of them from Erfurt, Magdeburg, and the surrounding country. The greater number settled in Buffalo, N. Y., but some went as far west as Wisconsin. In the year 1845 Grabau with his friends, P. v. Rohr, L. Krause, and Kindermann, founded the " Synod of Lutherans immigrated from Prussia;' afterward called the Buffalo Synod. Its theological seminary was connected with the MartinLuther-0ollegium in Buffalo. In distinction from the Saxon Lutherans Grabau entertained highchurchly ideals of the office of the ministry and ordination, making the reality and efficacy of the means of grace dependent on the office, and depriving the congregation of its right to discipline and excommunicate its members. Even in the management of the temporal affairs of the congregation the members were bound to strict obedience toward their pastors. Walther and his friends were convinced that in these views the hierarchical tendencies of Stephen were revived, from whose bondage they bad just escaped. A violent controversy ensued between the " Prussians " and the " Saxons." After a colloquy held in 1888 eleven pastors of the Buffalo Synod joined the Missouri Synod. The small remnant again broke into two sections, one of which ceased to exist in 1877. At the present time the Buffalo Synod numbers 30 pastors, 41 congregations, and 5,556.communicants. It has a theological seminary in Buffalo with five teachers and eleven students. In recent times there has been brought about an amicable understanding between the Buffalo Synod and the Ministerium of New York. Several conferences have been held with satisfactory results, both synods recognizing each other and admitting their members to pulpit and altar fellowship.

In the year 1841 the Rev. Frederik Wyneken, pastor of the Lutheran congregations in and nor Fort Wayne, Ind., sent forth a touching appeal to the mother church in Germany, appealing in behalf of the Lutherans in the western States of North America for help in supplying them with the means of grace. The venerable W. 3. The Loehe, pastor in Neuendetteleau, $a- Iowa varia, and founder of the deaconess Synod. institution in that village, was deeply moved with sympathy for his breth ren in the faith in America. He established a missionary institute and began the publication of a paper (Kirdaliche Mitteilungen arcs und über Nord America) through which he awakened and nour ished an active interest in the condition of the Lutherans in America. The first two missionaries sent by him attached themselves to the synod of Ohio and to the Michigan Synod. But in 1845 they and their sympathizers left the synod of Ohio and established the theological seminary at Fort Wayne under the presidency of Wilhelm Sihler. This step was taken because they were not satisfied with the confessional position of their synod in respect to the unionistic tendencies of the time. The insti tution at Fort Wayne was opened in 1848 with eiz teen pupils, most of whom had received their pre paratory training at Neuendettelsau. The ground and the buildings were acquired chiefly through contributions coming from Loehe and his friends.

90
Loehe himself advised his friends to associate themselves with the Saxon Lutherans. Several conferences were held at St. Louie and Fort Wayne, and the parties united in the formation of the synod of Missouri in which the emissaries of Loehe outnumbered the "Saxons." Soon, however, serious differences arose between Loehe and the leaders of the Missouri Synod, particularly on the doctrines concerning the Church and the ministry. To avoid e threatening rupture Wyneken and Walther were sent to Germany to confer personally with Loehe, but no agreement was reached. Consequently the adherents of Loehe, G. M. Grossmann and J. Deindoerfer, to avoid friction with the Missouri Synod, went further west, to carry on the American Mission work of Loehe beyond the Mississippi. To- i gether with S. Fritschel and M. Schueller they founded the synod of Iowa at Dubuque, Ia., Aug. 24, 1854. This synod means to represent a strictly confessional yet ecumenical Lutheranism. Accepting the symbolical books without reservation it distinguishes between what is confessed in the symbols as a direct doctrine of faith, and what those standards contain in their exegetical, historical, and explanatory material. From the very beginning there was a conflict between the synods of Missouri and Iowa. No agreement was reached in the conference at Milwaukee, 1867. The points of difference are essentially the following: (1) Concerning the office of the ministry, Missouri holds that the spiritual priesthood of believers involves the ministry of the Word, while the congregation, possessing the priesthood and all ecclesiastical authority, transfers to the individual the authority of exercising the rights of the spiritual priesthood publicly, in behalf of the congregation. Iowa draws the distinction between the spiritual priesthood and the office of the Word as a special vocation, and holds that the Missouri doctrine on this particular point was not fixed in the confessions of the Church, and therefore, even if correct, should not divide the Church. (2) Concerning the authority of the confessions both agree that all dootrines of faith in the confessions are binding. But Iowa limits those doctrines to such articles as are taught ex professo, without accepting their theological exposition as binding in every case. (3) Concerning "open questions" Iowa teaches that there are points on which different opinions may be held without disturbing church fellowship, such as the doctrines concerning Antichrist and the conversion of Israel. Missouri at first maintained that nothing that was taught in the Scriptures could be considered an open question in this sense. But later on, when difficulties arose in the Missouri Synod itself concerning the subject of usury, it was publicly declared that there was, indeed, a difference between articles of faith and other Scripture doctrines which moat not necessarily be considered as such. (4) Concerning Antichrist and all eschatological doctrines Missouri insists that all prophecies of things preceding the last day are actually fulfilled, including the prophecy concerning Antichrist, whose fulfilment is found in the pope. Iowa, while admitting the antichristian character of popery, holds that it should not be condemned as

unlutheran to expect some future culmination of the prophecy concerning Antichrist in a person that is yet to appear. (5) Concerning chiliasm (see Millennium, Millenarianism) both agree to accept the seventeenth article of the Augaburg Confession and reject any doctrine of the millennium which would rob the spiritual kingdom of Christ of its character as a kingdom of grace and of the cross. But the doctrine of a first resurrection, though not taught by the Iowa Synod as such, is not considered a fundamental error, as Missouri considers it. From the beginning there have been pleasant and kindly relations between the Iowa Synod and the General Council, though the former never entered into organic connection with the latter. At moat of the conventions of the General Council the Iowa Synod was represented by delegates. It took an active part in the preparation of the General Council's church-book and uses it in all its congregations. The Iowa Synoli numbers 487 ministers, 927 congregations, 99,895 communicants, scattered over nineteen States and British Columbia. It has a theological seminary in Dubuque, Ia., with 4 teachers and 45 students.

In the year 1805 for the first time traveling preachers of the Pennsylvania Ministerium reached the State of Ohio, where they founded a conference in connection with the mother synod. The or-

ganization of the synod dates from the

4. The year 1818 and its present name, Joint Joint Synod Synod of Ohio, from the year 1833.

of Ohio. Though a number of ministers, like

Dr. Sihler and the missionaries sent by Loehe, lead left the synod because they were not satisfied with its confessional position, the synod developed more and more in a decidedly Lutheran direction and in 1847 adopted all the symbolical books as the basis of its confession. Conferences held between Missouri and Ohio led to a gradual approach between the two bodies, and in the year 1872 the Joint Synod of Ohio united with the Missouri Synod and other western bodies in the formation of the synodical conference. But the controversy on predestination led to the withdrawal of the synod of Ohio in 1881. There followed an approach between Ohio and Iowa which culminated in a mutual recognition. The synod at present numbers 556 ministers. 733 congregations, 110; 877 communicants. There are two theological seminaries, in Columbus and St. Paul, with 9 teachers and 101 students.

The Synodical Conference, at present the strongest in the Lutheran Church in America, was founded in the year 1872 on the basis of the Concordia of 1580. It embraced the following synods: Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, .Michigan, and the Norwegian Synod, and numbers at present

3,444 ministers, 3,101 congregations,

8. The and 643,599 communicants. The synod Synodical of Wisconsin was founded by Rev. J. Conference. M�hlhauser, formerly in Rochester,

N. Y., and afterward in Milwaukee (1848-68). This synod at first belonged to the General Council, but left it in 1872 to join the synodical conference. It numbers 242 pastors, 350 congregations, 100,000 communicants, with a theo-

logical seminary at Wauwatosa, near Milwaukee (3 professors, 32 students). The synod of Minnesota was the fruit of the missionary labors of Father C. F. Heyer (1793-1873), born at Hebnstiidt, Germany, for many years an active missionary among the Telugus in India, died as chaplain of the theological seminary in Philadelphia. The synod was founded in 1860 at West St. Paul. It numbers 86 pastors, 123 congregations, 35 685 communicants. In 1867 it joined the General Council but left it in 1871 and afterward connected itself with the synodical conference. The synod of Michigan was the outcome of the missionary labors of the Rev. F. Schmid, Ann Arbor, Mich. It was founded in 1860, joined the General Council in 1867, and afterward went over to the synodical conference, in which it is now represented by 14 pastors, 22 congregations, 4,225 communicants. These three synods, of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan united in the synod of the Northwest, in 1892, with their common seminary in Milwaukee. But the original Michigan Synod, dissatisfied with this step, left the synodical conference in 1896, and is, since that time, without connection with a general body. It numbers 37 pastors, 54 congregations, 7,933 communicants. Another, more serious rupture took place in the synodical conference in consequence of the predestinarian controversy. Since 1868 there has appeared, a tendency of the Missouri leaders to condemn as Pelagian and synergistic the so-caned Intuitu,fidei. doctrine of the old Lutheran dogmaticiana, and to teach an absolute, unconditional, particular decree of God, by which a certain limited number of men were elected to salvation. Professor Asperheim, in the seminary of the Norwegian Synod, raised a voice of warning and was forced to resign his professorship and to leave his synod. Professor F. A. Schmidt, formerly one of the champions of Missouri, protested. against the teaching of Walther, the great leader of the Missouri Synod. The Professors of the Ohio synod sided with him. A colloquy, lasting five days, held in Milwaukee, had no favorable result, and in 1881 the Ohio Synod left the synodical conference. The Norwegian Synod to which Dr. F. A. Schmidt belonged was divided into two parties, and, in order to avoid a rupture in its own midst in 1884, it also left the synodical conference. ,

8. The Scandinavian Lutherans: About the middle of the.nineteenth century a new tide of Swedish immigration set in. Rev. Lars P. Esbjoern organized the first Lutheran congregations at Andover, Galesburg, Moline (Ill.), and New Sweden (Iowa). In 1851 he joined the synod of northern Illinois, belonging to the General Synod. Faithful pastors were called over from the

1. Swedes. mother country, like T. N. Hasael- 6uguatana quiet (afterward professor of the the. Synod. ological seminary of the Augustana Synod), Erla Carlson, Jonas Swens son. and young men like E. Norelius were ordained for the ministry. In 1860 the Scandinavians with drew from the General Synod and organized the

Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America." In 1870 the Swedes and Norwegians separated peacefully. The Swedish

Augustana Synod joined the General Council at the time of its organization and has ever since formed one of the most prominent bodies in this connection. In the seventies the Auguatana Synod had to contend against the influence of the "Mis sion Friends" (Waldenstroemians). Their college and seminary were moved to Rock Island. Other preparatory institutions are the Gustavus Adol phus College at St. Peters, Minn., Bethany College at Lindsborg, Kansas, and the Lutheran Academy at Wahoo, Neb. The Auguetana Synod is in real ity the Swedish General Synod of North America, extending over the whole Union from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It numbers 574 pastors, 1,052 con gregations, 154,390 communicants, and has seven orphans' homes, two deaconess homes, three hos pitals, and several immigrant and seamen's missions.

A small colony of Norwegian immigrants settled at Rochester, N. Y., in 1825 and nine years after ward moved to Illinois. The first step toward a church organization was the founding of (1) the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of North America,

Hauge Synod, through the influence

2. The of Elling Eielsen (1804-$3), originally

Norwegians. a lay preacher and adherent of Hauge, of Pietistic tendency. Several seces sions took place and in 1876 there was a reorgan ization under the name: "The Norwegian Evan gelical Lutheran HaUge Synod," with 122 pastors,

290 congregations, 21,181 communicants. Eielaen with a few adherents kept aloof, and there is at the present time still a separate Eielsen Synod with

6 pastors, 26 congregations, 1,200 communicants.

(2) The Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Synod of

North America was founded in 1853 by the more conservative elements, under the leadership of C.

L. Clauasen, A. C. Preus, H. A. Preua, U. V. Koren,

J. A. Ottesen, and P. L. Larsen, in sympathy with the Missouri Synod, in whose theological seminary at St. Louis they were represented by professors of their own (Larsen, Preus, F. A. Schmidt). After ward the synod established its own seminary in

Madison, Wis. The Predestinarian controversy, as above stated, led to the withdrawal of this Nor wegian Synod from the synodical conference, and finally to a separation in the synod itself (1887).

It numbers at present 350 pastors, 1,050 congregations, 87,000 communicants with a theological sem inary at St. Paul, Minn., and a college at Decorah,

Ia. (3) The initiative toward the founding of the

United Norwegian Lutheran Church in North

America was taken by the anti-Missourian party in the Norwegian Synod, who sought to unite the

Hauge Synod, the Norwegian AugUStana Synod,

and the Norwegian-Danish Conference. The Hauge

Synod did not join in this movement, but the others united in 1890 at Minneapolis. The united synod numbers 480 pastors, 1,335 congregations, 154,055

communicants, with a theological seminary at St.

Paul, Minn., and colleges at Canton, S. D., Moor head, Minn., and Northfield, Minn., and two or phans' homes two deaconess motherhouses, and seven hospitals. (4) The Norwegian Lutheran

Free Church was founded in 1893 by G. Sverdrup and Sven Oftedahl, formerly members of the Nor wegian-Danish Conference, sad reports 148 pas-

tore, 340 congregations, 42,738 communicants, with a theological seminary at Minneapolis, Minn., and a college, an orphans' home, and a deaconess mother-house.

(1) The Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, formerly the Church Mission Society, was founded in 1872, and numbers 61 pastors, 117 congregations, 11,737 communicants, with a theological seminary at Des Moines, 1&. (2) The United Danish Evangelical Lutheran 8. Other Church in America was founded in Scandina- 1896 in Minneapolis, and has 106 pastors, 202 congregations, 9,261 communicants, a college and theological seminary at Blair, Neb., and another college at Hutchison, Minn. The Icelandic immigration in North America dates from the year 1870. The first congregation was organized by Rev. Paul Thorlack eohn in 1875. The synod of Icelanders was founded in 1885 under the presidency of Rev. Bjernaeon in Winnipeg. Delegates from that body were in at tendance at the convention of the General Council in Chicago, 1899. The synod numbers 9 pastors, 43 congregations, 4,451 communicants. The Fin nish immigration is of quite recent date. The. Suomi Synod was organized in 1889 and numbers 24 pastors, 110 congregations, 13,201 communicants, with a theological seminary in Hancock, Mich.

7. Lutherans is the South: Lutheran Congregations were first organized in the South at Woodstock, Winchester, and New Market, Va., Salisbury and Concord, N. C., Orangeburg, Lexington, Newberry, and Charleston, S. C., and in the Salzburg colonies of Georgia. At the time of the Civil War the Southern General Synod seceded from the General Synod, consisting of the synods of Virginia, Southwestern Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The Apostolic and Nicene Creeds, together with the Augsburg Confession, as setting forth the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God, constituted the confessional basis, with the distinct understanding that there should be liberty of private judgment with reference to some articles of the Augustans. With the gradual development of a stricter confessional position this reservation disappeared. In 1886 a new general body was formed, called The United Synod in the South, accepting essentially the same doctrinal and confessional position as the General Council. It includes the following synods: North Carolina (organized 1803), Tennessee (1820), South Carolina (1824), Virginia (1829), Southwest Virginia (1842), Mississippi (1855), Georgia (1860), and the Holston Synod in Tennessee (1861). The United Synod numbers 235 pastors, 458 congregations, 47,514 communicants. It has s theological seminary at Mount Pleasant, Charleston, S. C., and colleges at Hickcory, N. C., and Newberry, S. C.

8. The General Council: The history of the origin of this body has been told in 4 above. Its first convention was held in Fort Wayne, Ind., Nov., 1867. Its doctrinal basis is stated in the fonder mental articles of faith and Church polity as follows: "We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense se throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word is the only rule. 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 are, with the unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith." At the first convention of the General Council the Joint Synod of Ohio, which had not adopted the constitution and was not ready to enter into organic union with the General Council, laid before that body four questions on its relation to chiliaem, altar and pulpit fellowship, and secret societies. Similar questions, except that on chiliasm, were also presented by the Iowa Synod. The discussion of these four points and the successive declarations on the same, at Pittsburg (1868), Lancaster, O. (1870), Akron, O. (1871), and Galesburg (1875), showed a steady growth in the fuller appreciation of the confessional principle underlying those points and a determination to carry the principle into practical execution. This position has been reached in spite of the hasty withdrawal of the very synods which from the beginning appeared as the champions of the confessional principle, viz., Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan. Much care was bestowed by the General Council on the production of sound books of worship for the use of its members in the family, the school, and the church. In this field it has been most successful. The German and English official literature published by authority of the General Council may justly be called a model of its kind. It is based upon the most careful and comprehensive studies in liturgies and hymnology, and in its preparation the best and most reliable sources have been used. It is pure in doctrine and complete in the material which it contains. More than any other Lutheran general body of this country the General Council represents the peculiar mixture, in the American Lutheran Church, of German, Scandinavian, and English-speaking elements, and that critical period of transition from the church of the immigrant to that of the native English-speaking American population. Its great task is to transfer into the sphere of the English tongue a genuine Lutheranism, sound in doctrine, government, and form of worship.

The Lutherans in the South initiated the important movement toward the Common Service for all English-speaking Lutherans in the United States. The General Council, in 1878, declared itself ready to cooperate in this matter on condition that the pure Lutheran Agenda of the sixteenth century should be recognized as the norm and standard for this work. This rule having been adopted by the United Synod of the South and the General Synod, the work on the Common Service was actually begun in 1884 and the orders for the main service, matins, and vespers were finished in 1888 and adopted by the three general bodies and the English Synod of Missouri. The English version of the Augsburg Confession was revised on the basis of Taverner's translation of 1536, and a new trance lation of Luther's Small Catechism was prepared for all English-speaking Lutherans.

The Genera] Council, according to the latest statistics, embraces the following synods: The Minieterium of Pennsylvania (organised 1748), with 388 ministers. 554 congregations, 145,215 aommuniasnta; the Miniaterium of New York (1773), 150 ministers, 149 congregations, 86.000 communicants; Pittsburg Synod (184b), 138 ministers, 190 congregations, 31,392 communicants; English District, Synod of Ohio (1857), 49 ministers. 82 congregations. 14,245 communicants; Auguetana Synod, Swedish (1880), 574 minietere, 1,052 congregations, 154,390 Communicants; Canada Synod (1881), 38 ministers, 78 congregations, 12,098 communicants: Chicago Synod (1871), 40 ministers, 58 congregations, 5,981 communicants; English Synod of the North West (1891), 29 ministers. 34 congregatidne, 5,060 aommunicante; Manitoba Synod (1897), 18 ministers, 51 ooagtegatione, 4,000 communicants; Pacific Synod (1901), 13 ministers, 20 congregations, 1,313 communicants; New York and New England Synod (1902), 52 ministers, 56 congregations, 15,192 communicants; Nova Scotia Synod (1903), 8 ministers, 25 congregations, 2,545 communicants. Total: 1,497 ministers, 2,347 congregations, 458,429 communicants, with three theological seminaries, at Philadelphia, Rock Island, and Chicago, numbering lb professors and 183 students; 7 colleges with 127 teachers and 2,107 students; 8 academies with 49 teachers and 902 students; 3 deaconess institutions, 12 orphans' homes, 8 asylums for the aged and infirm, 5 seamen's missions.

In addition to the synods that have thus far been treated, the following independent synods are to be mentioned: The Texas Synod, consisting of those members of the original Texas Synod who refused to unite with the Iowa Synod in 1895, numbering 15 ministers, 23 congregations, 2,200 communicants. Immanuel Synod, German, organized 1886, numbering 17 pastors, 11 congregations, 3,250 communicants.

The grand total of the Lutheran Church in North America shows: 8,052 !ninistera, 13,142 congregar lions, 2,012,536 communicants, with 24 theological seminaries, 96 professors, and 1,137 students; 39 colleges with 433 teachers and 7,535 students, 49 orphans' homes, 24 homes and asylums for the aged, 28 hospitals, 9 deaconess motherhoueea. Of these there are in Canada 92,550 Lutherans (in Ontario 48,100, in Manitoba 16,550, in the Northwest Territories 12,100), where since 1891 they have increased 44.5 per cent.

The number of Lutherans in Central and South America is estimated at about half a million, in the Danish West Indies they are in connection with the State Church of Denmark, in South America they are partly supported by the Lutherische Gotteskasten in Germany, and partly under the supervision of the Prussian State Church and assisted

by it.

Adolph Spaeth

The Lutheran Church, while largely augmenting its strength for many years by immigration, has not been indifferent to the demands of missionary effort in the United .States. As usual, this effort began in sporadic forms. As early as 1838 Rev. Ezra Keller, sent out by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, had explored the territory now comprised in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, laying foundations for the present churches of that region. In 1837, Rev. Carl Friedrich Heyer reported to the General Synod that he had explored the entire Mississippi Valley and found places for, at least, fifty missionary pastors. But it was not until 1845 that the Home Missionary Society of the General Synod was organised. In the early fifties missionary aid was given to the

Indians in Michigan, and to a number of missionary points in Wisconsin and Canada. The New York Minieterium sent strong help to the establishment of the Mother Churches in Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Syracuse, Lyons, and others in that State. The Ohio Synod was all missionary territory, and twenty pastors in this synod ministered to not less than 195 congregations. Between 1857 and 1859 the General Synod was supporting sixty-seven mission aries, while the district synods of New York and Allegheny had their independent work, rivaling that of the general body. Progress in Minnesota, under the aged Father Heyer, was particularly en couraging. In recent years the Pennsylvania and New York Synods have cooperated in the support of an immigrant mission at the port of New York and in the founding of an Emigrant House for the care of incoming Germans. The Lutheran Church at the present time is receiving and expending for home missions from three-quarters of a million to a million dollars a year.

J. B. Clark.

Bibliography: Some of the principal literature is named in the text; that sited under the articles in this work to which emu-reference is made in the text is, much of it, pertinent, e.g., under Agenda; Augsburg Confession and Its Apology; Formula of Concord; Luther; Melanchthon; and Philippists; for bibliographies cf. J. G. Morris, BiDliofhaca Lutherans, Philadelphia, 1878; H. E. Jacobs, in American Church History series, iv. pp. ix.-xvi., New York, 1893. For statistics cf: Xirchdiches Jahrbuck (published at Gütersloh), the Lutheran Church Annual, and Lutheran Year Book (annual). On the doctrines, besides the work of Jacob on the Book of Concord, cf.-. Schaff, Creeds, i. 220-253, ii. I-189; C. P. Hraut6, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, Philadelphia, 1871; A. L. Richter, Die evangeliechen Kirchenordnungen den IB. Jahrhunderts, Leipsic, 1871; idem, Lshrlrudv den . . . Kirchenrechfa, ib. 1874; S. A. HGhnan (ed.), Lectures on the Augsburg Confession, Philadelphia. 1888; H. Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Philadelphia, 1889: The Distinctive Doctrines and Usage of the General Bodies of as Evangelical Lutheran Church in as United States, Philadelphia, 1893; S. Fritschel, Die UnferaeheidunpslaMen der Synaden van Iowa and Missouri, Waverly, 1893; The Lutheran Church, her Communion and her Service, Philadelphia, 1908 (two sermons given as authoritative expositions of the doctrinal standpoint); L. Criatisoi, Luther d Is lutheraniame, Paris. 1908.

For the history of Lutherans consult: Nachrichten van den verain>oten dautechan ev: lufbaiuhen Gmraeindsn in Nord Amerika, abeondsrtirh in Penruylroanien. MU einer Vor rede van D. Johann Ludewiq SciW ss, 2 vols., Halle, 1760 1787, republication with notes begun by W. J. Mann, B. M. Schmucker, and W. Germans, Allentown, Ps., 1888, Eng. transl. begun by C. W. Schaeffer, Part L, Reading, Pa.. 1882 (left incomplete): E. L. Haseliue, History of' as American Lutheran Church, 1886-184.5, Zsneaville, Ohio, 1848; P. A. Stroebel, History of Me Sa(z6wpera, Baltimore, 188b: Clay, Annals of as Swedes on as Dela ware, Philadelphia, 1858; D. H. Focht. The Churches Be hoeen the Mountains, Baltimore, 1882; C. W. Schaeffer, Early History of the Lutheran Church in America, Phila delphia, 1888; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. ix., New York, 1889; G. D. Bernhelm, His. gory of Me German Settlements sect of as Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina, Philadelphia, 1872; Schir mer, Historical Sketches of as Evangelical Lutheran synod q/ South Carolina Charleston 1875; J. G. Morris, Fifty Yore in as Lutheran Ministry, Baltimore, 1878; W. Sih ler, LebenslauJ, $t. Louie, 1880 (autobiography); W. J. Mann, Life and Times of Henry Melchior M

Philadelphia, 1881: So6ierenbeok Lebsrubeuhr van lutkerischen Predipern in Ameriko, Selinsgrove, Ps., 1881-83; Amerikaniselve Beleuehtung,. Philadelphia 1882; C. Hoodetetter, GakhirAte der Missouri Synods. Dresden, 1886: A. Spaeth, The General Council, Philadelphia, 18Bb; idem. Chas. Porterfield XrautA, Memoir, V.I. i.. New York,

1898; idem, Dr. W. J. Mann, Bin deufaeh-amer%kanischer Theologe, Reading, 1903; B. M. Schmucker, The Organ ization of the Congregation in the Early Lutheran Churches in America. Philadelphia, 1887; Andersen, Den evanp. lutherake Kirke's Historie, New York, 1888; J. Nicmn. Geschichte des Miniateriuma von New York, Reading, 1888; F. C. Guenther, F. W. Walther, Lebenebild, 6t. Louie, 1890; 8. Henkel, Hist. of the Evangelical Lutheran Ten nessee Synod, New Market, 1890; D. L. Roth, Acadis and the Acadiana, Philadelphia, 1890; H. E. Jacobs, The Lu theran Movement in England and its Literary Monuments, Philadelphia, 1890; idem, in American Church History Series, vol. iv., New York, 1893, Germ. travel. with im portant additions by G. Fritachel, Gütersloh, 1898; E. J. Wolf, The Lutherans in America, New York, 1889, the same in German with important additions by J. Nicum, New York, 1891; A. L. Graebner, Geschichte der lutheri achen Kirche in America, St. Louie, 1892 (reaching to the year 1820); J. Nicum, in Proceedings of American Society of Church History, New York, 1892; J. N. Lenker. Lu therans in All Lands, Milwaukee, 1894; J. F. 6achee, The German Pietiata of Provincial Pennsylvania, 188k-1708, Philadelphia, 1895; A. Spaeth, H. E. Jacoba; and G. F. t3pieker, Documentary History of the Minieterium of Penn sylvania, Containing the Proceedings of the Convention 17/,8-18E1, New York, 1895-1899; J. Deindorfer, Geschichte der evangeliach-luUvsrischen Synods Iowa, Chicago, 1897; H. E. Jacobs and J. A. W. Haas, The Lutheran Cyclopedia. New York, 1899; Proceedings of the First Free Lutheran Diet, 1878, Proceedings of the Second Free Lutheran Diet, 1879, General Conference of Lutherans, ed. H. E. Jacobs, Philadelphia, 1899; F. Nippold, Handbuch der neueaten Kirchengeschichte, b vols., Berlin, 1901; G. H. Gerberding, The Lutheran Pastor, Chicago, 1903; T, w3cchmauk, A History of the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania, IB38-180, vol. i.. Philadelphia. 1903.