theirs
was the age of infancy and adolescence, and ours that of full-grown,
adult manhood. They were the Children; we are the Fathers; the tables
are turned." Down to its merger in 1915 with the _Lutheran Church Work_,
the _Observer_ has always borne the stamp of Kurtz's Reformed and
Methodistic theology, as well as of his fanatical and Puritanic spirit.
In 1858 Kurtz founded _The Mission Institute_, which was declared to be
non-sectarian. (_L. u. W._ 1858, 351.) In 1862 he wrote: "With the
editor of the _Lutheran_ I am an admirer of the Augsburg Confession, but
he must allow me to interpret it for myself, as I allow him." (_L. u.
W._ 1862, 152.) Kurtz and the _Observer_ were never censured by the
General Synod. Moreover, in 1866, at Fort Wayne, Synod resolved, in
memory of B. Kurtz, "that by this afflicting dispensation the Lutheran
Church has lost one of her oldest, most faithful, and successful
ministers; the General Synod, one of her earliest, ablest, and most
constant defenders; and the cause of Protestantism and Evangelical piety
in our country, one of its most enlightened and fearless advocates."
(37.)

78. Dr. Samuel Sprecher (1810-1905) was the brother-in-law and most
devoted and enthusiastic supporter of Schmucker. From 1849 to 1884 he
was president of Wittenberg College in Springfield, O., which was most
advanced in the advocacy and development of Schmucker's brand of
American Lutheranism. Again and again Sprecher urged the necessity of
making a bold and honest statement setting forth the exact tenets of
American Lutheranism. "I do not see," he said, "how we can do otherwise
than adopt the symbols of the Church, or form a new symbol, which shall
embrace all that is fundamental to Christianity in them, rejecting what
is un-scriptural, and supplying what is defective." (Spaeth, 1, 347.)
Determined in his blind opposition to "symbolism," Sprecher insisted
that the General Synod refuse admission to such as adhered to the
Lutheran symbols and their doctrines, and declined to subscribe to the
Platform. In 1858 the _Religious Telescope_ said in praise of Sprecher:
"He is a Bible-Lutheran and does not cram the heads of his students with
baptismal regeneration nonsense and similar semipapal imbecilities."
(_Observer_, Feb. 25, 1858; _L. u. W._ 1858, 126.) Toward the end of his
life Sprecher receded from his former position. In the _Lutheran
Evangelist_, January 15, 1892, he wrote: "I can now say, as I could not
form