are almost all shades of dissent and
descent, not only to that which is popularly called the Zwinglian, and
of which the _Lutheran Observer_ may be considered the exponent, but yet
lower to that which we may call, for want of a better name, Socinian."
(Spaeth I, 162.) A few weeks prior (June 8) Kurtz had declared that in
the 60 Lutheran congregations in Maryland not 30 American-born members
could be found who knew what "bodily presence" in the Lord's Supper
meant, much less believed in it. The more the free-thinking, practical,
and common-sense people the United States got acquainted with this
doctrine, the less they would take to it. The same was true of other
obsolete doctrines, such as baptismal regeneration. (_Lutheraner_,
October 30, 1849.) In January of 1854 the _Observer_ announced that an
old manuscript had been discovered in Germany, according to which
Luther, shortly before his death, retracted his controversy against the
Sacramentarians. (_Lutheraner_ 10, 108; cf. 2, 47.) In November of the
same year the _Observer_ declared that Profs. Heppe and Ebrard had
proved that the doctrine of the Lutheran Church on the Lord's Supper was
not the one of Luther, but that of the later Melanchthon. (_Lutheraner_
11, 71.) Anspach, coeditor of the _Observer_, stated in its number of
November 12, 1858: "Difference of opinion concerning the Sacraments is
tolerated in the General Synod, and although there are some among our
brethren who believe in the real presence of our Savior in the Lord's
Supper in a higher sense than others, they nevertheless hold that this
takes place in a spiritual and supernatural manner." (_L. u. W._ 1859,
30.) In its issue of June 29, 1860, the _Observer_ protested: "We can
never subscribe to the errors of the Augsburg Confession.... Let a
separation take place. Let those who are able to swallow the errors of
the sixteenth century, which have long ago been hissed from the stage,
rally around the banner: 'The true body and the true blood of Christ in
a natural manner in the elements,' and on the back side: 'Regeneration
by Baptism and priestly absolution essential to true Lutheranism'! This
is the theology of the symbolists. This papistical theology we cannot
and will not subscribe to in America. For it is a theology which is not
drawn from the Bible, but from the Roman Bible." In 1861 the _Observer_
remarked that the Missouri, Buffalo, and other Old Lutherans practise
ceremonies and adhere to doctrines