to doubt,
reject, or receive that which goes beyond the substance, and embraces
the minutiae of the form. The man who has a quarrel with this position
of the General Synod has a quarrel not against something incidental to
her, but against her very life. For on this position, expressed or
implied, rested, and continues to rest, the ability of our General Synod
to have a being." (Spaeth, 1, 402. 399. 401. 395 f.) According to Krauth,
then, there was constitutional room in the General Synod for Schmucker
and Kurtz as well as for Walther and Wyneken; room for all who accept
the fundamental doctrines in which evangelical Christians agree, but
deny the distinctively Lutheran doctrines, and room also for men who
confess all doctrines of the Lutheran Symbols. As late as October 29,
1863, Krauth declared in the _Lutheran and Missionary_ that there was
nothing in the Basis of the General Synod to bar even the Missouri Synod
from entering it with the whole mass of confessions in her arms. (_L. u.
W._, 1863, 378.) Dr. Krauth overlooked the fact that a Lutheran who
adopts the symbols _ex animo_, and does not merely carry them in his
arms, is serious also with respect to the confessional damnamuses with
which a unionism and indifferentism, as required by the General Synod,
is absolutely incompatible. In 1901 the _Lutheran Quarterly_ said: "The
damnamuses at the conclusion of several of the articles of the Augsburg
Confession are inconsistencies . . . fundamental contradictions with the
positive sense of the Confession." (359.) The _Quarterly_ could have
said, and probably wanted to say, that these damnamuses are fundamental
contradictions with the doctrinal basis of the General Synod. In
complete agreement with Krauth, the _Observer_ wrote September 11, 1903:
"The General Synod affirms and emphasizes what is universal in
Lutheranism, and leaves the individual at liberty, within this generic
unity, to receive and hold for himself whatever particularities of
Lutheran statement may commend themselves to his acceptance. The only
liberty denied him is that of forcing the particular upon his brethren
who are content to rest in the full acceptance of what is universal in
Lutheranism. It allows the same liberty in practise." (_L. u. W._, 1903,
305.)

UNIONISM.

29. Early Attitude.--The unionism which prevailed in all Lutheran synods
since the days of Muhlenberg was freely indulged in also by the General
Synod during the whole course of h