# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1859_S150
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

150 Eulogy on the General Synod.

Dörfler too had accepted a further call. The next day, February 24, Deacon Hochstetter appeared in Toledo as the Synod's authorized representative, in order, as the report states, "publicly to depose the fanatical mutineer, by commission of the K. Ministerium, from the office he had usurped." He first read Mr. Dörfler the decree in his home, against which he protested, and that same evening carried out the deposition publicly in the church as well, "amid insults," as it is put.

Even if we cannot approve the Buffalo Synod's procedure in this case in every particular, we nevertheless think that here too the chiliastic spirit has revealed itself in a manner that marks it as extremely dangerous, one that threatens to plunge the Church more and more into new distress and misery.

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Eulogy on the General Synod.

Such a one is found in the well-known organ of this body, the Lutheran Observer, of March 18, where it says, among other things, as follows*): "It seems that our Scandinavian brethren in Wisconsin are seized by a prejudice against the General Synod, almost to the same degree as some German synods in the West and Northwest. They are caught in a regrettable delusion regarding the much misrepresented and maligned General Synod. They seem to entertain doubts concerning the orthodoxy of the General Synod. Is that not strange? That this fellowship of Lutherans, represented by the General Synod — this noblest fellowship of Lutherans in the whole world — should fall under suspicion of somehow lacking orthodoxy is indeed a curious misunderstanding. Let us cast our eyes upon Lutheranism in all lands, and when we have considered the religious condition of the thirty millions who bear the name of the glorious Reformer in all the lands of Europe and America where there are Lutherans, we must come to the conclusion that that portion of the Church which is represented in the General Synod is the purest, the most orthodox, the most evangelical Lutheran fellowship in the world. It lets the spirit of Luther prevail more, and accomplishes his works more, than any other. It holds the deepest reverence for the name and character and writings of the great Reformer. If Luther himself could rise from his grave, or descend from heaven, to dwell among us for a time, there can be no doubt that, of all the millions who bear his name, he would choose the General Synod of the United States as the part of the Church bearing his name with which he would unite himself. Here he would feel at home; here

*) Mr. Conr. Schick has had the kindness to prepare the translation. The Editors.