# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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[illegible] Ev. Lutheran Concordia Synod of Virginia into the Federation of the Synodical Conference.

Pastor H. Wetzel appeared as delegate of the Ev. Lutheran Concordia Synod of Virginia. The Conference thereupon declared, by a unanimous resolution, that the Ev. Lutheran Concordia Synod of Virginia, since the condition laid upon it has been fulfilled, is hereby recognized by the Conference as a member of it.

VI. Three-Hundredth Anniversary of the Formula of Concord.

On 29 May 1877 it will be 300 years since the first signing of the Formula of Concord. This day should be celebrated by us as a jubilee. Such jubilee days have always been days of great blessing for our Lutheran people. There it learns the history of its Church. What children have heard in school of church history they all too easily forget again, but what they hear at such a jubilee remains unforgettable to them. In earlier times the year '77 was celebrated only by the universities and the higher schools. For the people one waited until the year '80 and then combined with the half-centenary celebration of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession the celebration of the first signing of the Formula of Concord of '77, in which the Formula of Concord was in general mentioned only in passing. In Germany there was in fact also less need of the Formula of Concord for the people than now. What did the people in the villages know of the doctrine of the papists, Calvinists, fanatics [*Schwärmer*], etc.! They came into no contact with them and therefore did not need to be made attentive to the contrasts. Now, and especially here in America, in the land of the sects, the people must on the contrary be initiated into the errors of the false churches. Every Lutheran must be made firm, that he know how to distinguish the right doctrine from the false and to refute error. It no longer suffices now that a Christian says: Go to my pastor, he will explain everything to you! Moreover, not only the sects but also many who bear the Lutheran name present the Formula of Concord as a hideous instrument of the worst old-Lutheran fanaticism. Therefore it is necessary that our people also be made attentive to this confession. For if the people read it, they will see with astonishment what shameful slanders the false spirits spew out about it. For the Formula of Concord is precisely an exceedingly mild confession. Quite differently does Luther, for example, appear in the Smalcald Articles. To be sure, the propositions of the Formula of Concord are expressed quite precisely, sharply and definitely; for the Lutheran Church was then like a veritable battlefield on which whole armies of false teachers moved to and fro. It looked as if the Lutheran Church should