itudes and in
more rapid succession. They no longer joined the American Lutheran
congregations generally. An Old Lutheran in Bavaria [Loehe] turned his
eyes on this country, sending colonies of hyper-Lutherans. These opposed
the revivals. Some of them were pious men, but their religious type
differed from the American. They were surrounded by influences which
hindered their amalgamation with American Christians. They had been
imbued with mistrust against the General Synod. Their system was such as
not to encourage spiritual life and progress.... These children of a
foreign soil had been sent over with a bitter prejudice against the
liberal Lutheranism of America. In the year 1845 there were probably no
more than one or two dozen old-Lutheran congregations in this country.
Now there are perhaps no less than 700 symbol-Lutheran congregations of
the old school in the country, whose preachers--numbering almost 500--
are all symbol- and hyper-Lutherans who profess to believe that the real
body and blood of Christ are orally received in the Lord's Supper, and
that the unbelieving communicant as well as the believing partakes of
the true body and blood of the Savior. They also believe in regeneration
by Baptism, and some of them also in private confession, in exorcism, in
beautifying the church with pictures and crucifixes; some of them also,
in bright daylight, light wax candles at Communion.... This German,
anti-Biblical, anti-American element could have been checked and
absorbed by the American Church if another element had not been added.
But during the rise of the great revivals of the fourth decade of this
century in our own Church unfortunately a class of people arose who are
far more dangerous and more powerful for mischief than the European
preachers. These American preachers became disloyal to the basis of the
General Synod, and began to raise a banner against the revivals and
against a spiritual Lutheranism.... They began a systematic persecution
of the most prominent men of the General Synod. In order to execute
their plans, they began to curry favor with the German symbolists. They
succeeded in adding tenfold bitterness to the prejudice and suspicion in
the hearts of the foreigners, until finally an almost unsurmountable
abyss seems to be fastened between the foreign high-church party and our
General Synod.... Every Lutheran of this country should have endeavored
to lead our foreign brethren to the General Synod, sh