im from their service for one year. He intends to
study this language with David Henkel. The members of his congregations
who were present agreed for him to do so, but requested to be visited a
few times by some of the other ministers during the time they should be
vacant. The Synod highly approved Mr. Miller's resolution, and wished
him to persevere in this laudable undertaking." (12.) The Synod of 1827
was confronted by conflicting petitions as to the language-question. The
following memorials were read: "1. A memorial from St. James's Church in
Greene County, Tenn., subscribed by 23 persons. They pray this Synod not
to alter the constitution. Further, that this body remain exclusively
German, and that some measures be taken to establish a separate English
Synod.... 4. In a letter in which the Rev. Adam Miller, Sr., states the
reasons of his absence, he prays this body to allow the English brethren
equal privileges, so that they may not be under the necessity of
establishing a separate Synod." (14.) The constitution, which was
proposed at this meeting and accepted in the following year, disposed of
this question as follows: "All debates shall first be held in the German
language, whereupon the same shall be resumed in the English; provided
there shall be both German and English members present. After the
debates on a subject shall have been ended, then the decision shall be
made." (R. 1827, 24; B. 1828, 28.) In the following years the English
language rapidly gained the ascendency, until finally the German
disappeared entirely. (R. 1831, 9; B. 1841, 8. 9.) Rev. Th. Brohm, after
visiting the Tennessee Synod, wrote in the _Lutheraner_ of January 2,
1855: "Though of German origin, the Tennessee Synod in the course of
time has lost its German element, and has become a purely English synod."

89. Born of Lutheran Loyalty.--The organization of the Tennessee Synod
came as a protest against the projected General Synod, and especially
against existing conditions in the Synod of North Carolina, to which the
Tennessee pastors belonged until their secession in 1820. March 14,
1820, Philip Henkel had written to his brother: "If I am spared, I shall
attend synod. . . . If the old ministers will not act agreeably to the
Augsburg Confession, we will erect a synod in Tennessee." The "old
ministers" were Stork, Shober, Jacob and Daniel Sherer, and other
pastors of the North Carolina Synod who advocated a union with the sects
and the con