Kurtz-Schmuckerian captivity." Similar progress was made in other
synods. (_Kirchl. Mitt_. 1850, 57.) In a letter of October, 1847, Philip
Schaff refers to Drs. Morris, Reynolds, Demme, and the two Krauths as
prominent among the conservatives of the General Synod. (Spaeth, _W. J.
Mann_, 38.) But what these men who at the middle of the nineteenth
century thrilled many a Lutheran heart with joy and hope abandoned, was,
at best, not unionism, but Reformedism. The most that can he said of Dr.
C.R. Demme (1795-1863; studied in Halle and Goettingen; came to America
in 1818), who was pastor in Philadelphia and prominent in the
Pennsylvania Synod, is that he was a theologian of a mild confessional
tendency. As late as 1852 he stood for the union distribution formula in
the Lord's Supper. Dr. J.G. Morris (1803-1895; received his theological
training at Nazareth, Princeton, and Gettysburg; founded the _Lutheran
Observer_; wrote _Life Reminiscences of an Old Lutheran Minister_, etc.)
signed the notorious letter of 1845, which later he declared to be the
greatest blunder of the General Synod. Morris approved of the unionistic
practises of the General Synod. As late as 1885 he declared his position
as follows: "I preach the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence of our
glorified Lord in the blessed elements; but when a poor, penitent,
praying, confessing, believing sinner comes and asks for permission to
commune with us, I dare not ask him whether his views agree with mine,"
etc. (_L. u. W._ 1885, 252.) Dr. Charles Philip Krauth (1797-1867;
professor in Gettysburg and editor of the _Evangelical Review_ from 1850
to 1860), though having a strong aversion to the Platform and being more
in favor of a revision of the doctrinal basis of the General Synod than
his son, signed the Pacific Overture and, in the Platform controversy,
was an ardent advocate of mutual toleration. Dr. Charles Porterfield
Krauth (1823-1883), prior to his manly retraction in 1864, was an
out-and-out unionist, and, in more than one respect, infected also with
Reformed views. As late as 1866, at Fort Wayne, he was apparently
satisfied with the confessional basis of the General Synod as declared
in the York Amendment and Resolution. Dr. L.A. Gotwald (1833-1900;
professor in Wittenberg Seminary from 1888 to 1895) was, in 1893,
charged with, and tried upon, charges, among others, of holding "to the
type of Lutheranism characteristic of the General Council," _viz_.,
"th