, 409.) However, Krauth himself, in advocating mutual
toleration, merely acted on the old principles of the General Synod. His
policy was in keeping with its unionistic traditions of "agreeing to
disagree and not to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare
them free--_quieta non movere et mota quiescere!_" Well satisfied with
the course of the General Synod at its conventions in 1857 and 1859, the
_Observer_ wrote: "The convention at Pittsburgh has strengthened the
bond of our union and shown that no question of doctrine or discipline
can disrupt us. We are one and inseparable. Our union is based on
mutual concession. We have learned a lesson which our fathers could not
learn: to give and to take." (_L. u. W._ 1859, 285.) Officially and
directly, then, the General Synod neither approved nor condemned the
Platform. Nor could she consistently have taken a different course, as
Schmucker had but acted on previous suggestions of Synod herself. In
1844 the Maryland Synod had appointed a committee to prepare an
"Abstract," which, in a way, was to serve as a substitute for the
Augsburg Confession. This "Abstract," though not adopted by the Maryland
Synod, was a forerunner of the Definite Platform. Schmucker, says Dr.
Spaeth, "was so much pleased with the 'Abstract' that he referred to it
again and again in his lectures and articles, and even made his students
commit to memory its principal statements. In an article on the
'Vocation of the American Lutheran Church' (_Ev. Review_ II, 510)
Schmucker said: 'With the exception of several minor shades of doctrine,
in which we are more symbolic than Dr. Baugher, we could not ourselves,
in so few words, give a better description of the views taught in the
seminary [Gettysburg] than that contained in his 'Abstract of the
Doctrines and Practises.'" (1, 114.) Also the General Synod, in 1845, at
Philadelphia, following in the steps of the Maryland Synod, authorized a
committee to formulate the doctrines and usages of the American Lutheran
Church. Schmucker, then, in preparing and publishing the Definite
Platform, was certainly not so very much out of tune with the sentiments
then prevailing in, and encouraged by, the General and some of the
District Synods. Consistently they could not rebuke Schmucker without
condemning themselves. Accordingly, the convention of the General Synod
in 1857, at Reading, took formal action neither with respect to
Schmucker, nor the Platform, nor the