which are as odious to many of us as
those in vogue in the Roman Church. (March 8.) Two years prior the
_Observer_ had blasphemously scoffed at the Lutheran Communion Liturgy
as "altar antics." (_L. u. W._ 1860, 31.) _Observer_, February 12,
1864: "Christ is at the right hand of God in heaven. How, then, can we
speak of Christ's body and blood as present in the Sacrament since no
such body did exist for these 1800 years, never since His ascension into
glory?" (_L. u. W._ 1864, 125.) November 7, 1862: "But who exercises
faith in infant baptism? Not the child, but the father or the sponsor,"
etc. (_L. u. W._ 1862, 373.) In 1904 the _Observer_ denied that a child
believes and is regenerated by Baptism. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 471.)
According to the _Observer_ of 1901 a man may become a true Christian
even without any knowledge of the Gospel and of Christ. (_L. u. W._
1901, 306.) _Observer_, March 27, 1868: "God's Book is a total
abstinence book, and God's Son never made intoxicating wine." In 1867
the _American Lutheran_ (published by the Hartwick Synod and later
merged with the _Lutheran Observer_), teaching the baldest Zwinglianism,
maintained that Baptism is a mere sign and seal of membership in the
visible Church on earth and no more regeneration itself than the
sign-board "Hotel" is itself the hotel. (_L. u. W._ 1867, 125.) The
_Lutheran Evangelist_, merged in 1909 into the _Observer_ and always
disowning every doctrine distinctive of Lutheranism, stated January 20,
1899: The pastors of the General Synod are too sensible to believe "so
foolish a dogma as infant faith." (_L. u. W._ 1899, 27.) The same paper
had declared in 1892: "They are bad Lutherans who do not view the
Sabbath as commanded by God. If the Augsburg Confession had been written
in our day, it would have delivered no uncertain testimony with respect
to the divine obligation of the Day of the Lord." The _Lutheran Church
Work and Observer_, the official organ of the General Synod, wrote
September 12, 1918: "The General Synod has always stood on the side of
temperance.... Almost all her ministers have been abstainers and
advocates of total abstinence. They have ever aligned themselves with
the temperance forces of the country to put the American saloon out of
business." The first resolution in favor of the temperance cause,
referred to in the minutes of the General Synod, was adopted in 1831 by
the Hartwick Synod. (9.)

44. General Synod Involved as Such.--In spi