t Deerfield, N.J.; was president of Capital University,
Columbus, 0., from 1850 to 1853, and of Illinois State University at
Springfield from 1857 to 1860; joined the Episcopalians in 1863;
translated and published Acrelius's _History of New Sweden_ in 1874. In
1842 Reynolds left the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and organized the
East Pennsylvania Synod. In the interest of conservative Lutheranism,
Reynolds, in 1849, founded the _Evangelical Review_, which B. Kurtz
promptly condemned as "the most sectarian periodical he ever read." In
1850, when asked whether he intended to adhere to the doctrinal basis
of the General Synod, Reynolds stated in the _Lutheran Observer_: "Well,
I frankly confess and rejoice in being able to say that within the last
two years I have changed my views with respect to several very important
points. But this change has not cast me out of the Lutheran Church, but,
moreover, led me into it," etc. Reynolds declared that he joyously
adopted "old Lutheranism," "as plainly taught in the Augsburg Confession
and Luther's Small Catechism." (_Lutheraner_, April 30, 1850.) In the
_Lutheran Observer_ of January 25, 1856, Reynolds retracted his former
endorsement of Kurtz's _Why You Are a Lutheran_, a booklet in which
Kurtz affirmed that the present Lutheran Church, with a few exceptions,
believed concerning the Lord's Supper what had been held by those whom
Luther termed "Sacramentarians." (_L. u. W._ 1870, 156.) Walther, in
1850, praised Reynolds as a man of substantial learning and a teacher
true to the Lutheran Church and her confessions. (_Lutheraner_ 6, 139.)
But Walther and other friends of true Lutheranism who staked great hopes
on Reynolds, were sorely disappointed in their expectations. In spite of
his retractions, Reynolds always was and remained a unionist. In 1857
Harkey gave the assurance that Reynolds was not a symbolist, but stood
on the doctrinal basis of the General Synod. When Dr. G. Diehl, in the
_Observer_, designated Reynolds as a strict confessionalist, Reynolds,
in the _Observer_ of October 2, 1857, protested that he was a General
Synod man, whose primary object was not to divide, but to unite. (_L. u.
W._ 1857, 314.) In his Springfield inaugural address, 1858, Reynolds
coordinated the evangelical denominations, and advocated extensive
unionism, maintaining that they all base their doctrines on Holy
Scripture. In order to justify his apostasy, Reynolds, in 1863,
published the statement