LUTHERANS. 



399 



Under the patronage of the Lutheran Church 

 in the ahove divisions taken together were 

 14 theological institutions, 16 colleges, 9 female 



* The statistics given by the Lutheran Church Almanac 

 for 1870, published at Allentown, by the Rev. S. K. Brobst, 

 somewhat differ, as, according to 'it, the preachers num- 

 ber 2,016, the congregations 3,330, and the communicants 

 376,567. 



seminaries, 16 academies, 14 orphan homes, 

 and other eleemosynary institutions. Twenty- 

 eight Lutheran periodicals are published, name- 

 ly: 9 English, 15 German, 2 Swedish, and 2 

 Norwegian. 



The General Council of the Lutheran Church 

 met in Chicago, in November. A response 

 was received from the Missouri Synod, in an- 

 swer to an invitation of the previous General 

 Council for that synod to send delegates to 

 the General Council ; it said in reply that it 

 would not deal with the General Council, as 

 such, but that, if a free conference could be 

 held, at which all who, without reservation, 

 confessed the unaltered Augsburg Confession 

 may be admitted, "we, on our part, would, 

 without doubt, largely attend the same, not 

 as representatives, but as individuals." 



The Council, in reply to this action, passed 

 resolutions regretting that the Missouri Synod 

 could not see its way clear to the official cor- 

 respondence invited ; and expressing a readiness 

 to receive and entertain any proposals in ac- 

 cord with its basis, either from 'the venerable 

 Synod of Missouri, or any others. 



The committee appointed to frame a reply to 

 the letter of the Pope, addressed to " all Prot- 

 estants and non-Catholics," reported, and the 

 Synod adopted the following resolutions : 



1. The Pope's letter repudiates,in its only address, 

 all recognition of any part of the Protestant world as 

 having an organic existence as a Church even de 

 facto. It is addressed to individuals^ as such, and 

 may be properly replied to by indiviauals at their 

 personal discretion. The idea, for some time cur- 

 rent, that Protestants are to have any rights, or are 

 invited to any privileges, in the " (Ecumenical Coun- 

 cil," is entirely groundless. Whatever may be the 

 suavity of the manner, the Pop^e is as inflexible in 

 the thing as if he were in the middle ages. He sim- 

 ply invites individuals of whom he affirms that they 

 t; do not profess the true faith of Christ," and for 

 whom collectively he has no better name than that 

 of " societies " and "sects" to abandon their con- 

 victions and make their submission to the particular 

 communion of which he is head. 



2. The individuals thus addressed are not of a class 

 to which the members of the Lutheran Church be- 

 long. Though the Lutheran Church is a Protestant 

 Church, and, in the strict, original, historic limitation 

 of the word, the only Protestant Church, yet, as the 

 Pope addresses Protestants who are " non-Catholics," 

 he uses the term in a sense in -which it does not em- 

 brace the members of our church. They are not 

 non-Catholic Protestants, but are Protestants against ' 

 Eome only, because Eome herself is non-Catholic. 

 Our church believes in the Holy Catholic Church ? 

 the Universal Christian Church, the Communion of 

 Saints, whose faith she confesses, and of which she 

 is a pure part, and her true people living members. 

 The very address of the letter makes t a fictitious as- 

 sumption, and to acknowledge that it is meant for 

 us would be to grant an untruth and to fix a stigma 

 upon ourselves. If there be those called Protestants 

 who concede that they are non-Catholics, they, and 

 they only, can properly consider the Pope's letter as 

 addressed to themselves. 



3. The Pope raises no pretensions in this letter 

 which have not been officially rejected by our Church, 

 again and again, and offers no arguments which have 

 not been repeatedly confuted in our Confession, and 

 by our great divines. 



4. The record of the Lutheran Church against the 



