(_L. u. W._ 1873, 375.) Enmity
against Lutheranism--such was the spirit of the counterfeit American
Lutheranism championed by Schmucker and his compeers. Nor is the
assumption warranted that this spirit died with its early protagonists.
In 1885 Dr. Butler characterized the Americanization of Lutherans in the
_Lutheran Observer_ as follows: "It is a great mission of the _Observer_
to open the blind eyes and to convert our Teutonic people from the
fetters of its language and customs to the light and to the liberty of
this Bible-loving, Sabbath-keeping, water-drinking, church-going and
God-fearing country." (_L. u. W._ 1885, 120.) As late as 1906 the
_Observer_ wrote: The General Synod is in possession of the American
spirit in the greatest measure. It is her mission to inject this spirit
into the Lutheran Church in America. This spirit embraces: adoption of
the English language; acknowledgment and toleration of the lodges;
fellowship with the sects. "The American spirit is that of fellowship.
Failure to be American in this is sure to bring us into ridicule and
even disrepute with the mass of the best Christian people of the land."
(_L. u. W._ 1906, 229.)

DEFINITE PLATFORM.

54. Now or Never!--Believing that the Lutheran Confessions, though not
an authority above, or alongside of, the Bible, are doctrinally in
perfect agreement with the Word of God, Walther, Wyneken, Sihler,
Craemer, and others, since 1840, boldly, aggressively, and victoriously
unfurled the banner of Lutheran confessionalism. Gradually, though
timidly and rather inconsistently, the same spirit began to enter, and
manifest itself in, some of the Eastern synods. A conservative tendency
was developing and increasing. Especially since the return of the
Pennsylvania Ministerium in 1853 the number of the so-called
conservatives in the General Synod, who refused to go all the lengths
with Schmucker and Kurtz, was materially strengthened. Among these New
School men the powerful growth of confessionalism in the West and the
silent increase of the conservatives in the larger Eastern synods
gradually began to cause alarm, fear, and consternation. They first
despised and ridiculed the movement as chimerical and utterly futile in
America, then feared, and finally hated and fanatically combated what
they termed "foreign symbolism." They felt the fateful crisis drawing
nearer and nearer. To be or not to be was the question. Nor was there
any time to be lost in pro