# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 34 —

Third Session.
Thursday afternoon, 5 October.

After Prof. Schmidt, on being asked, had declared that his counter-question mentioned this forenoon was meant to be addressed not to the questioners but to the whole Conference, it was recognized from this that he did not want to answer directly and unconditionally the question of the Norwegian brethren: Whether he wished to sit here as a brother or as an enemy? and this matter was therefore dropped.

Now the motion came up again that the Synodical Conference should make the protests of the three synods mentioned its own, that is, recognize them as just and well-founded protests.

Since, however, the grounds on which the protests rest, at least as far as the second point is concerned, had not yet become clear to some brethren, evidence was now first adduced that Prof. Schmidt had made himself guilty of faction-making [*Rottiererei*].

Accordingly Pastor Tirmenstein of the Minnesota Synod reported the following case: Pastor Vollmar, already before his withdrawal from the Minnesota Synod, had had two sharp articles published in "Altes und Neues" against the doctrine of the Missouri Synod, and when he was taken to task about it by the Synod, he retracted everything he had written against love and trust. The Synod required that such a revocation also be made publicly in "Altes und Neues," but Prof. Schmidt refused to accept the article in question. At the last Synod the Pastors Vollmar and Siegrist withdrew from it. The latter also sought to draw his congregation out of the Synod's connection. When a committee wished to investigate the matter in the congregation concerned, there also appeared: Prof. Schmidt, Pastor Allwardt and Pastor Vollmar, who, as said, had already withdrawn on account of the doctrine. Indeed, Prof. Schmidt preached for Pastor Siegrist to the misled part of the congregation, and in the afternoon advised it in a meeting what it should do.

Further, President Bading reported the following about the case at Oshkosh in the Wisconsin Synod: When Pastor Dowidat came home from the Synod at La Crosse, it turned out that agitation had been carried on in the congregation against him and our Synod. This became clear in the congregational meeting held soon after, at which Pastor Dowidat too had to object to the delegate's report as a distorted one. There was such excitement in the meeting that the pastor could hardly get a word in. People repeatedly shouted: We want no election of grace! We want no election of grace! A majority resolution demanded that Prof. Schmidt or Pastor Allwardt be called to help, and the minority protested against it together with the pastor. Pastor