# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1864_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church-Contemporary History. 189

her. Thus far the report. But we say that it would, in any case, still make a far better impression if the dear delegates had not appealed merely to the violation of the constitution that had occurred; but that it is nevertheless most gratifying, and one cannot thank God enough, that by this path the Pennsylvania Synod appears to wish to be freed once more from the dangerous and ungodly bonds into which it entered years ago of its own choice, and thereby denied its Lutheran character. May God help her further now! C.

Conference. On April 5–7 a free conference was assembled in Allentown, Pa., which had been prompted chiefly by Pastor Brobst. The number of participants amounted to 30 pastors. The name they adopted is: "The German Conference of Evangelical Lutheran Pastors of America." In the constitution it drafted, it confesses itself "to the unaltered Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism, according to the understanding of the remaining symbols of the Evangelical Lutheran Church." From now on, all preachers who agree with this confession and stand in connection with a regular Lutheran synod are to be admitted as members. The assembly is to take place annually. Its purpose is to be "to discuss the needs of our church and the means suited to meeting them, and to set these forth to the various synods." The content of the resolutions adopted is: 1. An emigrant mission is to be established at Castle Garden in New York, and for this purpose a missionary is to be appointed by the Synods of Pennsylvania and New York. 2. The latter synods are to be induced to open a correspondence with societies, authorities, and leading men of the Lutheran Church of Germany in order to obtain competent pastors and missionaries, and at the same time to found a German ministerial seminary. 3. A plan is to be laid before the next meeting of the Synod of Pennsylvania as to how Allentown College could be used for the training of Lutheran schoolteachers, or how the establishment of a German teachers' seminary in connection with that college might be possible and advisable. 4. Under the direction of the Pennsylvania Synod, a Lutheran ministers' newspaper is to be founded, and the "Lutheran Journal" is to reach such an understanding with the "Lutheran Herald" that one of these two papers will appear every Saturday, so that whoever takes both will have a weekly. 5. The pastors are to work for the enlargement and improvement of their Sunday school libraries and for the dissemination of good Lutheran periodicals. On other matters, papers were assigned for the next meeting, and the session closed with the establishment of an executive committee.

Catholic newspapers circulating in North America number 25, namely 14 in the English and 7 in the German language in the United States, and 4 in the former language in Canada.

The Methodist Church. Those in the North who have hitherto supposed that, through the abolition of slavery, the breach between the northern and southern Methodist churches would also be healed, and a union of the two brought about, by means of which the northern church would inherit the southern one, seem to have rejoiced too soon. On April 6, a convention of southern Methodist preachers, representing seven conferences, namely those of St. Louis, Missouri, Memphis, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Louisville, met in the last-named city and unanimously adopted the following resolutions: "Whereas, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, a notice of confiscation of the Southern Methodist Publishing House at Nashville, Tenn., has been filed on various charges unknown to us, but in general on the ground of disloyalty; and whereas the said publishing house is the property of the Southern Methodist Church — a legally organized ecclesiastical society, recognized as such by the laws of the United States; and whereas it is the duty of the said church to respond to the aforementioned notice; and whereas, on account of the disturbances now existing in the country, the regular General Conference of this church cannot at present be held in accordance with its own laws; and whereas we, the delegates to this convention and representatives of loyal members of several annual conferences of the said church, as such delegates (in view of the aforesaid impossibility), being fully author-