# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1864_S375
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Theological Conflict Now Breaking In Upon the General Synod. 375

into its halls. In the choice of professors and teachers they were
careful. By calling away Dr. Schaeffer from Gettysburg, they have
secured for themselves an excellent teacher. We deeply regret that a man
so highly esteemed and so worthy should leave an institution of the
General Synod and attach the weight of his name to a party school. At
his side will stand Dr. C. P. Krauth Jr., the well-known editor of the
"Lutheran." Since his conversion to Ultra-Confessionalism, and during
his editorial career, he has at times displayed a very poor spirit,
calling his former friends pirates and traitors, and, for the
entertainment of his new friends and admirers, drawing not portraits
but caricatures of the editors of the Observer, holding them up to the
bitterest ridicule. Otherwise he does indeed possess talent and
learning. But the future must show whether he will have the patience to
drudge, year in and year out, in the schoolroom with young pupils, and
whether, besides logical ability, he possesses the inventive and
constructive power needed to bring a good course of theological
lectures into being. The other professors, namely the Reverends Dr. J.
W. Mann, Dr. C. W. Schaeffer, and G. F. Krotel, have thus far been
known to the church chiefly only as popular preachers and successful
pastors. One will soon see what they can accomplish in their new field
of labor. To all appearances the institution will have a fair number of
students right from its beginning. How far will it encroach upon our
other seminaries? How far will people be persuaded that our other
seminaries do not teach the pure doctrine?

Another force, an ally of the Philadelphia seminary and perhaps no
less influential, is its organ, the "Lutheran and Missionary." One
cannot deny that whatever skill these brethren possess for writing a
paper, they devote wholeheartedly to this periodical. They are evidently
determined to do their best. All the writers of this party contribute
to the paper; all its pastors and students appear to be zealous
canvassers for subscriptions. Have the friends of the General Synod and
its institutions already set about promoting the interests of the
Observer, as is needful, with equal zeal and energy? Is not the
Observer entirely loyal to the Lutheran Church (?), to the General
Synod, to the institutions at Hartwick, Gettysburg, etc.? We maintain
that the interests of the General Synod, the welfare of all the
institutions we represent, and the prosperity of our church in this
land require, on the part of the church, an earnest support of the
Observer, as the only widely circulated English-language paper on the
basis of the General Synod.

The third force, namely the publication and dissemination of church
books, is of the highest importance. The Pennsylvania Synod has
published a liturgy which contains much that is excellent. We point
here merely to the literary merits of the book, without reference to