etter of February 14, 1866, "for the
recitations in the seminary, write every week for the _Lutheran_, more
for the _Lutherische Zeitschrift_ of Brobst, continue the translation
of the Tract Society's Commentary on the New Testament, keep up some
correspondence, and at the same time perform my various and burdensome
duties as a pastor and, find yet a little, a very little, time for light
reading." Mann, for many years a bosom friend of the arch-unionist Ph.
Schaff, whom he admired as "the presiding genius of international
theology," gradually became a conservative confessional Lutheran
theologian, opposed also to the unionism as practised by the General
Synod. On April 7, 1892, Schaff wrote to his friend: "What right had the
sixteenth and seventeenth century to prescribe to future generations all
theological thinking? We are as near to Christ and to the Bible as the
framers of the confessions of faith." Dr. Mann answered: "In the air in
which this letter breathes I cannot live.... What right had the framers
of the American Constitution to lay down a basis for the administrative
side of the life of this nation?" As to the General Synod, Dr. Mann's
love for it gradually turned into aversion, because of its utterly
un-Lutheran features. He charged the General Synod with living "in a
concubinage with the Presbyterians and Methodists." In 1853 he wrote: "I
have rejoiced over the union of our Pennsylvania Synod with the General
Synod, and now I rejoice still more." (173.) Mann still failed to see
that no one can truly love the Lutheran Church who despises, ignores,
and denies her doctrines and usages. In 1855 he said of Missouri: "They
have no patience with their weaker sister," meaning the General Synod.
(176.) But in the immediately following years Mann himself began to
attack the Definite Platform and its American Lutheranism. With respect
to the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of America,
however, Dr. Mann never occupied a clear, firm, and determined Lutheran
position. He revealed no interest in the discussions on the Four Points.
Of the Missouri Synod Dr. Mann wrote in 1866: "These theological
scratchbrushes (_Kratzbuersten_) of the West do an important work. They
discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only
Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying
life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical
Americanism. There is a firm character here