Early Lutheran Immigration to Wisconsin. 
291 
By all the leaders in this movement a constitution with popular repre¬ 
sentation was demanded. The idea that the people should participate 
in government and legislation underlay every attempt at reform. Even 
in religious matters the same right was recognized. Thus as early as 
1813 great importance was attached to the necessity of a free church 
constitution. The great representative of this idea was Schleiermacher. 
For this he wrote and worked unceasingly, believing that in this way 
only could the union be brought about,* but the spirit of absolutism at 
the Prussian court which was unfavorable to political constitutions, wa s 
not less so to a free church constitution. 
The year 1817 marks the beginning of a new'epoch in religious mat¬ 
ters. In that year Claus ITarnes published his ninety-five theses against 
rationalistic apostasy and in the same year at the three hundredth anni¬ 
versary of the Reformation, King Frederick William III., of Prussia, pro¬ 
claimed the union of the Reformed and Lutheran churches. The great 
point of difference between the two creeds lay in the doctrine of the 
Lord’s Supper; the Lutherans taught the real presence of Christ’s body 
44 in,” “with,” and “under” the bread and wine of the sacrament; the 
Calvinists made these symbolic of the real spiritual presence to believers 
only. Other points of difference related to the doctrine of predestina¬ 
tion which Luther had not taught in any strict sense; but the Reformed 
church laid great emphasis on moral character, and for that reason was 
more inclined to the idea of unity than the Lutherans who emphasized 
doctrinal points. 
To the king who was of the Reformed faith the union seemed most 
simple. 44 According to my opinion,” he had said, 44 the communion strife 
is only an unfruitful theological subtlety, of no account in comparison 
with the fundamental faith of the Scriptures.” | The fact that he was 
outside of the church to which the great majority of his people belonged, 
was a source of great regret to him. Possessed of a deeply religious 
nature and for some time under pietistic influences, the union had been 
one of his dearest objects. Though the act may have been praiseworthy, 
and was performed by the king in the profound belief that he was called 
to do that work, yet his unfortunate belief in the sacred prerogative of 
kings which led him to carry out the reform in a thoroughly absolute 
manner, was destined to call forth an opposition which ended in the par¬ 
tial failure of the attempt. The union was proclaimed without the con¬ 
sent of the churches, and in 1822, a new agende was drawn up by Bishop 
Eylert and the court theologians, and. in 1830, was rigidly enforced. 
Schleiermacher, the upholder and defender of the Union, was strongly 
opposed to the agende, partly on account of its source, namely the royal 
*Weber’s Weltgesckichte, vol. XIV, p. 900. Brockhaus, articles “Union” and “ Schleir- 
macher.” 
+ Treitschke II, p. 240. 
