sland,
Dr. Gerberding occupied the pulpit of the Presbyterian church. At Port
Colborne, Can., on November 11, 1918, Rev. Knauff of the General Council
fellowshiped with Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Anglicans in
a united Thanksgiving service. (_Luth. Witness_ 1919, 14.) Dr. J. Fry in
his _Pastor's Guide_: "A Lutheran pastor may officiate on any occasion,
or perform a ministerial act in which ministers of other creeds take
part, provided the occasion and circumstances are such as will not
violate synodical order, nor compromise his confessional position."
(84.) Again: "Y.M.C.A.'s, W.C.T.U.'s, Christian Endeavor, etc., are
rarely [sic!] to be recommended to our people, as they are generally
conducted on 'new-measure' lines, and their influence is to make our
members dissatisfied with Lutheran or churchly ideas and usages." (97.)
It may be safely said that without the sanction of this species of
unionism openly practised within the General Council, the Lutheran
Merger of 1918 would have been an impossibility. And yet, this practise
admits of but one construction: mutual acknowledgment. "When teachers
and preachers exchange pulpits and chairs, it is an emphatic way of
declaring, not their personal friendship, but their endorsement of each
other's teachings; it is all the same as to infer that they are in
accord in their essential teachings." (Editor of the _Presbyterian_.)

ATTITUDE TOWARD LODGES.

126. Sound Lutheran Principles.--At its convention at Pittsburgh, 1868,
the General Council made the following declarations with respect to
secret societies: "1. Though mere secrecy in association be not in
itself immoral, yet as it is so easily susceptible of abuse, and in its
abuse may work, as it has often worked, great mischief in family, Church
and State, we earnestly beseech all good men to ponder the question
whether the benefits they believe to be connected with secret societies
might not be equally reached in modes not liable to the same abuse. 2.
Any and all societies for moral and religious ends which do not rest on
the supreme authority of God's holy Word as contained in the Old and New
Testaments; which do not recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as the true God
and the only Mediator between God and man; which teach doctrines or have
usages or forms of worship condemned in God's Word and in the
Confessions of His Church; which assume to themselves what God has given
to His Church and its ministers; which req