ler as a Committee of Conference on
Christian Union to confer with similar committees and prominent
individuals of different denominations "on the great subject of
Christian Union." At New York, 1848, Synod resolved that the report on
Christian Union be adopted, and the Committee on Christian Union be
continued." (15.) At Charleston, 1850, the Committee of Conference
remarked in its report: "As the general principles of the Apostolic
Christian Union, _adopted by this body_, were fully detailed in our last
report, it is deemed unnecessary to enlarge on them in this place."
(21.) Schmucker continued his efforts till the year of his death, 1873,
when again he made an appeal to the General Synod "for an advisory union
among all Evangelical denominations" as an "additional aid to the
promotion of the designs of the World's Evangelical Alliance." (53.) The
committee to whom Schmucker's letter and his printed appeal was referred,
recommended the resolution: "Resolved, That while this General Synod
approves of the ends contemplated by the appeal, and commends the
fraternal spirit of its author, yet it does not deem it necessary for
the present to take any further action towards Christian union than that
which is already upon record." (53.) Schmucker's ideas concerning
Christian union, however, were not abandoned by the General Synod.
Moreover, in a way, his plans materialized in the Federal Council,
consisting of about 30 Protestant bodies, at the organization of which,
in 1905, the General Synod was represented by Wenner, Remensnyder,
Grosscup, and Bauslin. (_L. u. W._ 1906, 33.) Theologically the Federal
Council does not even measure up to the ideals of Schmucker, inasmuch as
it reduced the nine points of the Evangelical Alliance, which Schmucker
viewed as essential, to the meager confession of "Jesus Christ as their
divine Lord and Savior," which even Unitarians will not hesitate to
subscribe to. Besides, Seventh-day Adventists, Christians, Friends, and
other bodies tainted with Unitarianism are even now connected with the
Federal Council. In 1909 the General Synod "heartily endorsed the work
of the Federal Council." (115.) In 1917 Synod adopted the report of its
delegates to the Council which said, in part: "It was a great privilege
to have participated in this historic council. As the federation idea
originated in the United States in the mind and heart of a learned and
devout Lutheran, Dr. Samuel S. Schmucker, it was a grea