fundamentally false teachers are to be excluded from the Lord's Table."
(209.) But the convention at Chicago, in 1870, explained: "Although the
General Council holds the distinctive doctrines of our Evangelical
Lutheran Church as in such sense fundamental that those who err in them
err in fundamental doctrines, nevertheless, in employing the terms
'_fundamental errorists_,' in the declaration made at Pittsburgh, it
understands not those who are the victims of involuntary mistake, but
those who wilfully, wickedly, and persistently desert, in whole or in
part, the Christian faith, especially as embodied in the Confessions of
the Church Catholic, in the purest form in which it now exists on earth,
to wit, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and thus overturn or destroy
the _foundation_ in them confessed; and who hold, defend, and extend
these errors in the face of the admonitions of the Church, and to the
leading away of men from the path of life." (215 f.) Accordingly, the
fact that a Christian held the Reformed view on the Lord's Supper did
not _per se_ exclude him from the altars of the General Council.

123. "The Rule Is."--At Akron, O., 1872, in answer to a question of the
Iowa Synod referring to the declaration of 1870, Dr. Krauth, then
President of the General Council, submitted the following: "1. The rule
is: Lutheran pulpits are for Lutheran ministers only. Lutheran altars
are for Lutheran communicants only. 2. The exceptions to the rule belong
to the sphere of privilege, not of right. 3. The determination of the
exceptions is to be made in consonance with these principles, by the
conscientious judgment of pastors, as the cases arise." (216.) At
Galesburg, 1875, the General Council declared: "The rule which accords
with the Word of God and with the Confessions of our Church is:
'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only--Lutheran altars for
Lutheran communicants only.'" (217.) However, this declaration, which,
for the time being, satisfied the Iowa Synod, admits of the
interpretation: The exceptions are: Lutheran pulpits for non-Lutheran
ministers, and Lutheran altars for non-Lutheran communicants, as was
virtually admitted also by the General Council in her answer of 1877 to
an appeal from the Ministerium of New York against violation of the
Galesburg Rule. (217.) Returning--if indeed a return was required--to
the Akron Declaration, the General Council, in 1889, stated "that at the
time of the passage of the Gales