o
the Augsburg Confession. (_L. u. W._ 1864, 187.) The minority, among
whom the delegates of the Pennsylvania Synod were prominent, protested
against the admission of the Franckean Synod, declaring "that by this
action of the General Synod its constitution has been sadly, lamentably
violated." And when Synod refused to reconsider her action, the
Pennsylvania delegates, appealing to the conditions upon which they had
reentered the General Synod in 1853, publicly declared their withdrawal.
At Fort Wayne, 1866, the General Synod "resolved, That, inasmuch as the
Franckean Synod has complied with the condition of admission laid down
by the last General Synod, its delegation be received." (17.) In the
same year, however, the Western Conference of the Franckean Synod had
organized as "Mission Synod of the West" in order to "Americanize"
Lutherans in Iowa, Minnesota, etc. Rev. Fair, a member of this synod,
wrote: For what is it (the Augsburg Confession) but a bit of paper and
ink, containing, indeed, some good truths, but likewise also virulent
errors; therefore let it go where finally all error must go--to hell.
(_L. u. W._ 1866, 380f.) The fifth article of the Incorporation Charter
of the "Mission Synod of the West" provided that, since the Augsburg
Confession taught regeneration by Baptism, the bodily presence of Christ
in the Lord's Supper, private confession and absolution, and rejected
the divine institution and obligation of the Christian Sabbath,
ministers who were in favor of subscribing to the Augustana as a test of
membership, etc., should not be received into Synod, nor employed as
teachers in its colleges or as ministers in its congregations. As its
doctrinal basis the Mission Synod adopted the "Declaration of Faith" of
the Franckean Synod as containing all fundamental doctrines of the Word
of God, all that is truly evangelical in the Augsburg Confession. This
radical attitude was criticized by the _Observer_, not, however, as
false, but as too open, unguarded, and unwise. (_L. u. W._ 1866, 199f.)
At Fort Wayne, 1866, the General Synod advised the Franckean Synod "to
dissolve the distant Mission Synod of the West, and direct the ministers
now composing it to apply for admission to those synods within whose
bounds they may reside"; its radical confessional attitude, however, was
not criticized. (35.) As late as 1899 A.S. Hardy wrote concerning the
Franckean Synod: "Both her 'Declaration of Faith' and practise
[reviva