Chapter 10

49. Reports on Revivals.--To what an extent over a long period revivals were indulged in by the congregations of the General Synod appears from its minutes. The Committee on the State of the Church reported in 1857: "Revivals have been enjoyed in every quarter, many souls have been added to the Lord, and whilst the congregations have thus been largely increased, there is every reason to anticipate that the addition thus secured for the ranks of the ministry will not be a small one." (30.) In 1859: "The most extensive and powerful revivals of religion ever known among us have been enjoyed by a very large number of our churches during the past two years." (59.) In 1864: "Frequent and extensive revivals and numerous additions to the Church are reported by the brethren." (55.) In 1866: "Many of our churches are rejoicing in special seasons of grace, refreshings from on high, revivals of religion, in which sinners are converted, whilst God's people are awakening to new life." (42.) In 1869: "Revivals of religion have been quite general during the year, and many have been born into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." (59.) In 1875: "In most of the synods there have been seasons of special extended quickening. Large numbers have professed conversion. In some instances hundreds have been added to a single church in a twelvemonth." (23.) In 1848 the Synod of Western Virginia reported: "Almost all our churches have been blessed with revivals of religion. In some upwards of one hundred persons have professed to have passed from death unto life; in others seventy-five, in others fifty, and in some not so many." (45.) In 1859: "The two institutions, Roanoke College and Wytheville Female College, have also been blessed with gracious visitations from on high, which resulted in the conversion of a number of students in both institutions." (53.) The Virginia Synod, in 1859: "We have shared to some extent the great revival blessings which God has poured out upon the land." (51.) The New York Ministerium, in 1850: "The churches generally are in a state of prosperity, and many of them have been favored with special visitations of the Holy Spirit." (31.) In 1859: "The great revival has had its influence upon our churches; many have been added to our number, and the vital piety has increased." (61.) The Synod of West Pennsylvania, in 1850: "Interesting revivals of religion have occurred since the last General Synod in different places." (29.) In 1853: "The influences of the Holy Spirit have descended as the dew upon the labors of most of them, whilst there have been refreshing showers in the case of many. Revivals are known to have been enjoyed by eight of the pastoral districts within the last two years. This number embraces nearly half of the charges of the Synod. Some of these gracious seasons were of great power, resulting in the hopeful conversion of many souls, and furnishing a number of students having the ministry in view." (28.) In 1859: "Nearly all the churches have enjoyed revivals of religion more or less extensive; conversions have been numerous." (49.) In 1864: "In some pastorates there have been special awakenings, and many have been added to the Church of Christ." (55.) In 1871: "Many of the churches have been blessed with precious seasons of refreshing grace." (44.) East Pennsylvania Synod, in 1850: "Many sections of the Church have been blessed with special visitations of the Spirit of God." (32.) In 1862 the Synod of Central Pennsylvania reported: "In mercy God poured out His Spirit upon a number of the charges and congregations, and many souls professed conversion; and although the sad effects of the war are, in this Synod, clearly seen in her churches, still we are happy to state that much good has been accomplished." (45.) In 1871: "There have been extensive awakenings in several of our pastorates, and there is a steady and commendable progress in spiritual attainments generally." (47.) The Hartwick Synod, in 1853: "Precious seasons of refreshing have been vouchsafed to its churches. The Lord is in the midst of His people, making glad their hearts with the tokens of His presence and His love." (30.) In 1862: "Although there have not been, within the past three years, revivals so numerous and so extensive as in the two years previous, yet seasons of refreshing have been enjoyed on the part of many of the churches, and such progress made as to evince the Lord's presence and blessing." (41.) In 1804: "In several of our churches the Lord has graciously revived His work, believers have been quickened into higher life, and sinners have been converted." (57.) In 1871: "Many of our congregations have enjoyed special seasons of grace, and large accessions to the Church have been the result." (44.) In 1859 the Alleghany Synod reported: "Extensive revivals have been enjoyed and a large number of members added." (52.) In 1862: "The Synod has had some precious revivals of religion in many of its congregations. In many respects the Synod has prospered in vital piety." (42.) In 1869: "Some of the charges have made large additions, as results of religious awakenings, during the past winter." (58.) The Melanchthon Synod, in 1859: "Extensive revivals of religion have been enjoyed in many of the congregations, and large additions have been made to the membership." (58.) In 1862: "The churches within the bounds of this Synod enjoyed extensive revivals during the first two years after the last meeting of the General Synod, at which time the rebellion, so disastrous to both State and Church, took place and blasted many of our most cherished enterprises, and laid low many of our fondest hopes. During the past year, accessions to the Church within our bounds have been comparatively few, revivals of religion rare, whilst there has been a marked decline in vital godliness." (46.) In 1869: "During the past year quite a number of revivals of religion have occurred." (59.) The Synod of Kentucky, in 1859: "Some of our charges have enjoyed revivals of religion, which greatly refreshed both ministers and people, and considerably increased our numerical strength." (57.) The Maryland Synod, in 1859: "Extensive revivals have been enjoyed by many of the churches." (49.) The Synod of New Jersey, in 1862: "Our body has an existence of only one year. Yet we have enjoyed revivals of religion." (42.) In 1869: "A number of revivals of religion have been reported." (61.) In 1871: "Several of our churches have enjoyed seasons of special religious interest and revival." (48.) The Franckean Synod, in 1869: "Practical religion has been well sustained. Several precious revivals have been enjoyed." (62.) In 1871: "Synod is engaged with more or less success in establishing and unfolding a true religious life in the membership of the Church of God as the grand object of being, endeavoring to promote revivals of religion." (48.) The Susquehanna Synod, in 1869: "This Synod is in a prosperous condition. During the past year, and, more particularly, during the past winter, extensive revivals of religion were enjoyed and large numbers of souls hopefully converted to God and added to the Church." (62.) In 1871: "There has been a large increase in the membership, mostly through judiciously conducted protracted meetings and catechization." (48.)

50. Reports on Revivals (continued).--In 1869 the Synod of New York reported: "Some of the congregations have been visited with special showers of divine grace, and, as a consequence, large additions have been made to its membership." (58.) The English Synod of Ohio, in 1853: "There are but few congregations in connection with our Synod but what have, during the past year, enjoyed greater or less manifestations of the Spirit of God in the conversion of sinners." (34.) The East Ohio Synod, in 1859: "In all of our churches most precious seasons of grace were enjoyed. The Spirit of God 'came down like rain upon the mown grass,' and righteousness flourished in all our borders." (52.) In 1862: "The state of religion is healthy. The past few years have been marked with the gifts of the Divine Spirit, and, while sinners have been converted to God, the professed people of Christ have been stadily [sic] growing in spirituality and church-love." (43.) In 1869: "We have had many precious seasons of revival during the past year, and large accessions to the number of those who shall be saved." (59.) In 1871: "Many precious revivals of religion have been recorded, and large accessions have been made to the churches." (45.) The Olive Branch Synod, in 1853: "Almost all the churches connected with this Synod, during the year, enjoyed precious revivals of religion." (37.) In 1859: "Many of them have enjoyed refreshing seasons from the presence of the Lord, by which they have become much strengthened and encouraged." (54.) In 1862: "The churches are, with few exceptions, in a prosperous condition. Some of them have enjoyed seasons of refreshing." (43.) In 1871: "A number of charges have had precious seasons of revival, resulting in large additions to their membership. The state of religion in our churches is more favorable than it had been in the few years previous." (46.) The Miami Synod, in 1859: "Revivals have been enjoyed in almost every charge, and large numbers have been brought to the knowledge of the truth." (52.) In 1871: "Several of them have enjoyed special seasons of grace." (45.) The Synod of Iowa, in 1859: "Some of the churches have been visited by revivals of religion, and there a more healthful state of piety is seen." (58.) In 1862: "The most extensive revivals of religion ever known among us have been enjoyed during the past winter. Our laity are becoming more of a praying as well as a working people. A deeper tone of piety exists among us. There is more heartfelt and prayerful longing for the gracious outpouring of the blessing of God, and more earnest efforts are being put forth for the conversion and salvation of souls. It is therefore our decided conviction that at no former period of our brief history have we been so fully and generally awakened to our great mission in this distant West as at the present." (46.) The Synod of Northern Illinois, in 1859: "Our Swedish and Norwegian brethren are very active, and a living practical Christianity is making powerful progress among them. During the last two years extensive and powerful revivals have been enjoyed by many of the churches connected with this Synod." (54.) In 1871: "A number of refreshing seasons of divine grace has been enjoyed during the past two years." (47.) The Synod of Northern Indiana, in 1859: "In the last two years many of its churches have enjoyed revivals of religion." (57.) In 1862: "Many precious revivals of religion have been enjoyed." (44.) The Wittenberg Synod, in 1859: "During the past two years our churches have enjoyed the special visitations of the Holy Spirit and the number of our members has been greatly enlarged." (52.) The Synod of Illinois, in 1859: "Many of the churches have enjoyed refreshing seasons from the presence of the Lord, and vital piety is advancing." (53.) The Synod of Southern Illinois, in 1862; "Some of our congregations have enjoyed refreshing showers from the presence of the Lord, during the last winter, and are in prosperous condition." (46.) In 1864: "Amid all these hindrances, some of the churches have been revived by gracious outpourings of the Spirit." (59.) In 1869: "Although new elements of wickedness, such as rationalism, pantheism, etc., are making their way into our midst, yet Christians are awake to their baneful influences and are setting themselves against them." (61.)

51. Coming to Their Senses Gradually.--New-measurism was resorted to by the General Synod in order to revive the dying Church. The true cause of her apathy, atrophy, and decay, however, was not diagnosed correctly. It was the prevailing confessional indifference, religious ignorance, and the neglect of Lutheran indoctrination by catechization, especially of the young. Dr. Hazelius, himself a revivalist, as early as 1845, pointed out the real cause and cure. "The attachment of the Church"--said he-- "has been weakened so much that the causes of this alarming fact have frequently been made the subject of inquiry in our churchpaper [_Observer_], and we are sorry to say that among all the causes assigned, we have missed the one which is at the root of the evil, _viz._, the remissness of many of our pastors in the religious instruction of youths." (Wolf, _Lutherans in America_, p. 484.) If this was the disease, it stands to reason that a cure could not be brought about by the quack methods of New-measurism, by exciting the nerves and emotions, but only by enlightening the mind and moving the will by the Word of God. Pastor Loehe, presenting in _Kirchliche Mitteilungen_ of 1843 a description of revivals and camp-meetings in America, remarked: "They intoxicate themselves with spiritual drinks which are worse than whisky." (Nos. 2 and 5.) Indeed, Methodistic revivalism has been found wanting, and worse than wanting, everywhere. In a Lutheran congregation it must necessarily result in a total annihilation of whatever there may be left of true Lutheranism.--The inoperativeness of revivalism was occasionally admitted also by its friends within the General Synod. At New York, 1848, regretting the decrease in the number of theological students, the Executive Committee of the Parent Education Society stated: "This subject becomes more painful when we consider that since 1842, when the Church at large was blessed with extensive revivals of religion, the number of beneficiaries has diminished constantly until the present time, whilst there has been no corresponding increase perceptible in the number of theological students who sustain themselves. During the same time there has been no corresponding increase in the benevolence of the Church in any other direction; on the contrary, the contributions of the whole Church for all benevolent purposes may now be easily covered by the annual charities of a single congregation in this city." (64.) But the ministers and congregations of the General Synod were slow in coming to their senses. It was one of the symptoms pointing in the right direction when, in 1864 at York, the Committee on the State of the Church reported: "It is a hopeful sign of substantial growth and prosperity in the Church that the time-honored custom of catechization is coming more and more into favor with the pastors. This means of preparing the baptized children of the Church for an intelligent profession of faith in Christ and the privilege of communicant membership, had, in many places, fallen into neglect on account of the frequent abuse to which it had been subject in the hands of those who employed it as a mere formal mode of introducing the young to the communion without any evidence of piety; but we believe it is now becoming more and more a means of conversion and salvation to our rising membership." (1864,55.) At Altoona, 1881, the same committee presented the following report, which Synod adopted: "Ministers, from every quarter, report with delight that catechization is regularly practised and grows in favor. We are foolish to throw away this noble heritage. It affords, as nothing else, an opportunity for the children of the Church to become professing Christians. The pastor can train, educate, and indoctrinate them through it. By its help our churches, every year, can have a healthful growth, and not depend alone upon special seasons, or revivals of religion. We, therefore, may expect in the future still larger accessions--accessions which, trained by a godly and devoted ministry, should be, not nominal, but living Christians, understanding the great truths and doctrines of the Word of God." (60.) In the following decades, as related, revivals decreased rapidly within the General Synod. A thorough and permanent cure of the Methodistic infection, however, can be effected only by the doctrine of grace, the Gospel of unconditional pardon and truly divine power, as taught by the Lutheran Church.

"AMERICAN LUTHERANISM."

52. A Misnomer.--Essentially Americanism signifies liberty of thought, speech, press, and assemblage, based on democracy and national independence, religious freedom and equality being its most precious gem. Lutheranism, therefore, standing, as it does, for the complete separation of State and Church, as well as liberty and equal religious rights for all, is inherently American; while the Reformed confessions, inasmuch as they advocate religious intolerance, civil legislation favoring their own religious tenets, etc., are in conflict with the principles of American freedom. A Reformedist, in order to become a true American, must sacrifice some of his confessional teachings, while the Lutheran symbols are in need of no purging to bring them into harmony with American ideals. Indeed, in the atmosphere of American liberty the Lutheran Church, for the first time in her history, on a large scale was able to develop naturally and normally by consistent practical application of her own innate principles, without any corrupting or dwarfing coercion on the part of the State whatsoever. Yet the very man, Dr. Walther, who did more than any other theologian in America towards the building up of a Church at once truly Lutheran and truly American, was stigmatized by S. S. Schmucker and his compeers as a "foreign symbolist," neither Lutheran nor American. But the brand of American Lutheranism proposed and propagated by the leaders of the General Synod was, in reality, a counterfeit American Lutheranism. The new school movement, headed by Schmucker, Kurtz, and Sprecher, and constantly prating "American Lutheranism," was essentially Calvinistic, Methodistic, Puritanic, indifferentistic, and unionistic, hence nothing less than truly Lutheran. From his professor's chair and in the press Schmucker denied and assailed every doctrine distinctive of Lutheranism. In every issue of the _Observer_ B. Kurtz ridiculed and attacked what was most sacred to Luther and most prominent in the Lutheran Confessions. In this he was seconded by Weyl in _Lutherische Hirtenstimme_ and other publications in the General Synod. Thus, while professing and pretending to Americanize the Lutheran Church, the leaders of the General Synod, in reality, were zealous in denaturing, corrupting, and inoculating it with views and ways prevailing in the Reformed churches ever since the days of Zwingli, Bucer, Calvin, and Wesley. The coryphaei of the General Synod, in order to impart to the Lutheran Church, as they put it, "the warmth of Methodism and the vigor of Presbyterianism," disemboweled their own Church of heart and lungs, and filled the empty skin with sectarian stuffings. American Lutheranism, according to Schmucker, was not Lutheranism in sympathy with American institutions and the English language, but abolition of the Lutheran symbols and rejection of the Lutheran doctrines (absolution, real presence, baptismal regeneration, etc.) in favor of the corresponding Reformed tenets and the nine articles of the Evangelical Alliance. Reynolds said in a letter of January 7, 1850: "The fact is, there is a large body of men in our Church who have no knowledge of her history, no sympathy with her doctrines, no idea of her true character, and whose conception of the Church is that of a kind of mongrel Methodistic Presbyterianism, and of this party Drs. S. S. Schmucker and Kurtz are the coryphaei." (Spaeth 1,179.) In 1873 _Lehre und Wehre_ wrote: "So-called American Lutheranism is but a new edition of Zwinglianism, which, in a dishonest fashion, appropriates the Lutheran name. The more one agrees with Zwingli and disagrees with the 16th century Lutheranism, the more genuine an American Lutheran he is." (29.)