the unessential details of our theological system but rather the larger
truths and principles for which we stand and which we hold in common.

A hundred years ago, on the tercentenary of the Reformation, after a
period of political humiliation and economic distress in the Fatherland,
the Ninety-five Theses of Claus Harms sounded a call for a Lutheran
awakening throughout the world. The result of that revival is felt in
the churches to this day.

The quadricentenary of the Reformation was celebrated amid the
convulsions of a World War. Is it too much to hope that after this war
also the ground may be prepared for a spiritual sowing and reaping when
the unnecessary dissensions of sectarian controversy will give place to
fraternal co-operation in the service of a common Lord and in the
promotion of a common faith?*
*Since the foregoing paragraphs were written an unexpected change
in the outlook has taken place. Steps were taken a year ago toward
bringing together three of the general bodies of the Church in America.
Should this hope be realized, it will bring into closer union a majority
of the churches of Greater New York.
On May 7th, 1918, at a meeting of nearly one hundred Lutheran
pastors, members of nearly all of the synods represented on this
territory, there was organized a "Conference of the Lutheran pastors of
the Metropolitan District for the discussion of all questions of
doctrine and practice to the end of effecting unity." This, too, is a
harbinger of an approaching era of reconstruction and peace.

The Problem of Language

It was a Lutheran demand in the sixteenth century to preach the Gospel
in the vernacular. It would be un-Lutheran in the twentieth century to
conduct public worship in a language which the people do not understand.

This lesson is written so plainly in the history of our churches in
America that "he may run that readeth." The Swedish churches on the
Delaware, planted by Gustavus Adolphus for the very purpose of
propagating the faith in America, were all of them lost to the Lutheran
church because the persistent use of the Swedish language, and the
inability of the pastors to preach in English, proved an insuperable
obstacle to the bringing up of the children in the Lutheran communion.
When the New York Ministerium at its meeting in Rhinebeck, September
1st, 1797, resolved that it would "never acknowledge a newly-erected
Lutheran Church merely English in places where the me