# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1857_S218
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

218 Church and Contemporary History.

...sembled From the reports already published in the periodicals concerning the proceedings held, we extract the following items. Dr. S. W. Harkey of Springfield, Ill., was elected president. German Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist preachers were again admitted as advisory members. Representatives of 25 synods, namely 116 voting members, were present; 73 preachers and 43 lay delegates from the laity. A committee reported that, with the exception of 3, all the synods belonging to the body wished to retain the licensing system. The earlier offensive resolutions against the Franckean and the Tennessee Synod were rescinded "as contrary to the spirit of the constitution." Five delegates were elected (among them also Dr. Stohlmann) for the next Kirchentag at Stuttgart in September of this year. It was determined that two members of the Board of Publication to be elected for the purpose must ex officio have first read and approved all writings to be issued by it; for this function Pastors Hay and Krotel were elected. Dr. Schmucker's motion that it be resolved that the Board may not publish any writings dealing with existing controversies was carried by a large majority. It was resolved to send representative delegates to the assemblies of the following synodical bodies: those of the German Reformed, the Moravians, the New School Presbyterians, and the Evangelical Association of the West. The General Synod will hold its next sessions at Pittsburg on the third Thursday in May of the year 1859. Dr. B. Kurtz moved that a committee be appointed to propose means for producing a fuller unity within the territory of the General Synod. The doctor himself writes about this that he had thought "the golden hour" had come for a "liberal platform" that would never "break," and that had his motion been adopted, the church would have become more united and stronger "than at any time since the unhappy revival of the hated symbol controversy." But the motion failed conspicuously; almost no one would touch the matter, although in the doctor's judgment fully nineteen twentieths were for it in their hearts. Another subject of the doctor's comment is that the affair of the Missionary Institute was not brought before the synod; which had probably likewise been done so as not to disturb the "good feelings that prevailed."

"The United Brethren in Christ," a sect founded by a certain Otterbein, a Reformed preacher who had immigrated from Germany, held its General Conference at Cincinnati on May 12 and the following days. From the report of it in the "Fröhlicher Botschafter" one sees that Anabaptist principles have penetrated into this sect as well. One member testified publicly, among other things: "At present it is no longer unusual for our own preachers to preach publicly against infant baptism and to speak frivolously about it. A majority of the preachers in the West now declare themselves against infant baptism and seek to hinder those preachers who prefer infant baptism in the discharge of their duty." This experience cannot surprise us in the least; it is far more astonishing that, given the Reformed view of the sacraments as mere signs of grace and not means of grace, any Reformed man is still to be found who does not fall into Anabaptism. — It is remarkable, moreover, that the sect named above has no lay representation in its General Conference; rather, it is formed solely of the preachers. Very naively the conference declares that in its fellowship "ecclesiastical power is nevertheless rightly distributed," because the election of the delegates takes place by vote of the laity. Against secret societies all those assembled, save a few, gave a decided testimony. The number of the sect's local preachers now amounts to 417, that of its traveling preachers to 499, that of its members to 61,399.

II. Abroad.

Jena. In the preface to this year's volume of the Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung Dr. Hengstenberg writes: "At about the same time (as the departure of Professor Schwarz) there