# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S55
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 55 —

Schmidt's name was not mentioned at all in that report, and that any refutations of his false doctrine contained in it could therefore be understood only by those who already knew his false position.

In spite of his violent personal attacks, a colloquy was then held again at Milwaukee in January 1881, by order of President Larsen, in which the presidents of the district synods and the faculties of all the theological seminaries within the Synodical Conference took part. When this too failed to bring about agreement, the Conference was prepared to continue the negotiations with Prof. Schmidt. In the meantime he was not to be prevented from defending his doctrine in his periodical, nor from refuting the opposing doctrine. But this must be done without the hostile polemics employed until then, and in particular he must not, as hitherto, attack individual persons and synods. But Prof. Schmidt rejected even this friendly accommodation; indeed, he sharpened his spiteful tone so far that he did not shrink from reviling the theologians who defended our side as hypocrites and altogether godless men, and our doctrine, drawn from Scripture, as a fox theology.

By this, all further brotherly negotiations were of course made impossible. On the contrary, on our side too his attacks had now to be rejected firmly, publicly and with mention of his name. But God is our witness that nothing other than self-defense drove us to this step.

That Prof. Schmidt, then, did not want peace at all, and deliberately broke the agreements, can be seen especially in his conduct toward the synods of Minnesota and Wisconsin. For although these synods had never written against him in their organ, he opened the struggle against them at once in the most spiteful manner as soon as they had issued a public declaration concerning the doctrine of election of grace. He described them without further ado, before all the world, as Calvinistic, crypto-Calvinistic, godless, and so on.

And how seriously he meant these charges of heresy, how plain it is that they did not merely slip from his pen in the heat of the dispute, one sees from the fact that, as soon as opportunity offered, he treated us as enemies and heretics, contrary to the existing agreements that he had himself helped to conclude, and contrary to the doctrine of the call [*Beruf*] that he himself had earlier advanced and defended. Wherever he could, he forced his way into our congregations and sought to bring about division. So, for example, in Oshkosh, Wis. In that city a part of the congregation, against the protest of the pastor and of many members, invited him to dispute with Pastor Dowidat. Although the pastor was unwilling to agree to this, especially since he had not himself yet discussed the question with his congregation and was not accused of false doctrine, and although