ganized
1860, in 1864. The Minnesota Synod joined the General Council in 1867
and in 1872 the Synodical Conference.

14. Secessions and Accessions.--The title "General Synod" was for the
greater part of her history descriptive of, not what the General Synod
was, but what she desired to become. In a letter to Solomon Henkel,
dated January 23, 1826, Henry Muhlenberg remarks: "Of the seven Lutheran
synods only three belong to the General Synod, and yet its
representatives assume the name 'The General Synod of the Lutheran
Church in the United States'!" In 1829 there were 74 ministers in the
synods connected, and 123 in the synods not connected, with the General
Synod. In 1834, of 60,971 Lutheran communicants the General Synod had
20,249 and the Ministerium of Pennsylvania 26,882. In 1860 the Lutherans
in America numbered 245,000 communicants, about two-thirds of whom
belonged to the General Synod, then embracing 26 district synods with
1,313 pastors and 164,000 communicants. The following decade, however,
marked a heavy decrease. Owing to unguarded resolutions with respect to
the Civil War, the Southern Synods withdrew, and in 1863 organized the
General Synod South. In 1866 the oldest and strongest synods seceded and
immediately formed the General Council. The consequent numerical loss
was more than 200 pastors and 76,000 communicants. After these reverses
a number of smaller synods acceded to the General Synod. In 1867 the
Susquehanna Conference, formed in 1845 and belonging to the East
Pennsylvania Synod, organized as Susquehanna Synod and resolved to unite
with the General Synod. Susquehanna University, at Selinsgrove, is
located in her bounds. The Synod of Kansas, organized in 1868 by
ministers and laymen in Kansas and Missouri, was received 1869. Midland
College and the Western Theological Seminary are upon its territory. The
German Wartburg Synod united 1877. It had been organized 1875 by the
German Conference of the Synod of Central Illinois formed at the
dissolution of the Illinois Synod in 1866 by ministers who remained
loyal to the General Synod, among them Severinghaus, the editor of the
_Lutherischer Kirchenfreund_. The _Kirchenfreund_ was succeeded by the
_Lutherischer Zionsbote_, established in 1896 as a joint organ of the
German Wartburg and Nebraska Synods, representing at the same time the
German interests of the entire General Synod. The German Nebraska Synod
was organized in 1890 and admitted by the Gene