_viz_., union with the Reformed. Graebner says: "When all
the Lutherans had been organized into one general body, and had grown
accustomed to marching together, one might also hope to experience that
when the command for the greater union would be given, the entire
Lutheran people, now freed from Lutheranism, would march in stately
procession to the goal of Schober's Morning Star [union of all
Evangelical churches]. This was evidently the policy and ulterior object
when, at Harrisburg, 1818, the Pennsylvania Synod resolved that 'the
officers of Synod be a standing correspondence committee to bring about,
if possible, a union with the other Lutheran synods.'" (685.) Viewed in
its historical context (the favorable deliberations and resolutions on
the union seminary, the union hymn-book, etc.), this resolution admits
of no other interpretation. When, therefore, the organization of the
General Synod seemed, in the opinion of many, to interfere with and
threaten the projected union with the Reformed, the Pennsylvania Synod
promptly withdrew from this body, in 1823. Says Jacobs: "The form of the
opposition [to the General Synod] was that the General Synod interfered
with the plans that had been projected for a closer union with the
Reformed, and the establishment of a Lutheran-Reformed theological
seminary. Congregations in Lehigh County petitioned the synod, for this
reason, to 'return to the old order of things'; and the synod, in the
spirit of charity [?] toward its congregations, in order that nothing
might interrupt the mutual fraternal love that subsisted between the
brethren, consented, by a vote of seventy-two to nine, to desert the
child which it had brought into being." (361.)

62. Union Reformation Jubilee of 1817.--At York, June 2, 1817, the
Pennsylvania Synod resolved to celebrate the tercentenary of the
Reformation together with the Reformed, the Episcopalians, etc.
Invitations were extended accordingly. In his answer of October 14,
1817, Bishop William White of the Episcopal Church wrote to Pastor
Lochman, expressing his delight at the prospect of taking part in the
prospective celebration. He said: "I received the letter with which you
honored me, dated July 23, 1817. In answer I take occasion to inform you
that it will give me great satisfaction to join with the reverend
ministers and with the whole body of the Lutheran Church, in this city,
on the day appointed, in returning thanks to Almighty God for the
b