ynod), with Loy and
Stellhorn and Allwardt in the Joint Synod of Ohio, and with Schmidt in
the United Norwegian Church as it then existed. The controversies on the
ministry, on predestination, on conversion and synergism, while
expressive of deep conviction and loyalty to the Truth, do not form a
chapter in our history of which Lutherans can feel proud. When orthodoxy
becomes so strict and strait-laced and legalistic, when it stands up so
erect as to lean backward, both the interests of the Truth and of the
Church are bound to suffer. The cause of unity is harmed, and union or
cooperation is rendered impossible." However, if the paramount object of
the Lutheran Church always was, is now, and ever must be, to maintain
the truth and the unity in the Spirit, then, whatever in other respects
may justly be said in praise of the General Council, her neutral
attitude toward the doctrinal differences of the Lutheran synods in
America, though temporarily it may have proved expedient in the interest
of external union, was in reality neither Christian, nor Lutheran, nor
conducive to the unity or any other real and abiding blessing of our
beloved Church. For while indeed forbearance also with the weak in
knowledge and faith is a mark peculiar to the Christian spirit,
indifferentistic silence as to what is true or false, right or wrong, is
neither a virtue, nor, in the long run, will ever prove to be of true
advantage anywhere, least of all in the Lutheran Church.

THE UNITED SYNOD IN THE SOUTH.

ORGANIZATION.

142. Synods Participating in the Union.--The United Synod of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South was organized June 23, 1886, in
Roanoke, Va., after a doctrinal basis had been agreed upon at a
preliminary meeting in Salisbury, N.C., 1884. The following synods
participated in the union: 1. The North Carolina Synod, organized in
1803, and since 1820 prominent in the General Synod. 2. The South
Carolina Synod, organized in 1824, of which Dr. J. Bachman, who opposed
the confessionalism of the Tennessee Synod, was a member. Bachman
(1790-1874) served the same congregation in Charleston for sixty years,
and became renowned also as a scientist. E.J. Wolf: "Bachman was in the
first rank of ornithologists in his day. With Audubon, whose two sons
married his two daughters, he prepared _The Birds of America_ and _The
Quadrupeds of America_. He was a member of numerous scientific societies
and numbered among his corresp