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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters. 
will instead of the free choice of. the church, partly on account of its 
contents, on the ground that they were antiquated and reactionary. 
“ The Union rested not simply upon a weakening of the opposing 
Evangelical doctrines,” says Weber, “but upon positive dogmatic princi¬ 
ples.”* It was ostensibly a liberal union leaving the interpretation of 
disputed points to the conscience of the individual while the Bible only 
was recognized as the ground of faith and life. 
While the movement had many warm supporters and was imitated 
by other German courts, namely, by Baden, Nassau and Rheinpfalz,, 
yet it was not heartily supported by the rationalistic element, and on 
the other hand, aroused a new Lutheran consciousness. It was taken 
as an attempt to root out Lutheranism which the revival of Germany’s 
great past was more likely to restore. This was especially the case in 
those parts of Prussia where Lutheranism existed almost unmixed, 
where, then, there was no sympathy with Reformed doctrines and the 
union was not felt as a practical necessity. This was the case in North 
Germany — Saxony, Mecklenburg and in Pomerania. “ It seemed,” says 
Treitschke, “ like an uprising of Reason against Revelation.”! 
For some years the opposition was confined to literary polemics,! but 
in 1830 when the new agende was enforced by cabinet orders, Prof. 
Scheibel of Breslau founded a separate society of two or three hundred 
families, and being refused permission to worship according to the old 
agende, Scheibel left the country. Many Silesian pastors followed his 
example and resistance spread rapidly to Erfurt, Magdeburg and differ¬ 
ent parts of Pomerania. At Erfurt the leader of the movement and 
afterwards of the emigration to America was Rev. Johannes A. A. Gra- 
bau, pastor of the Evangelical church. In spite o“ an early education 
under the influences of a pastor of the United faith, Grabau seems to 
have kept his preference for the Lutheran church. Finally, in 1836, he 
reached the conclusion that the Union was contrary to the Scriptures 
and declared publicly that he could no longer use the new agende with 
good conscience. Being questioned by the counsellor of the Consistory,, 
he replied that the new form in the administration of the Lord’s Supper 
did not express the belief of the Lutheran church, and that their faith 
was curtailed and weakened in the new spirit of the times. His society 
agreed with him and when he was suspended from his office and a new pas¬ 
tor was put in charge, they followed him to his house where services were 
held. This, too, was forbidden, but they decided “ to obey God rather than 
men.” The separate society grew until it reached a membership of nearly 
400. Meanwhile, at Magdeburg, another small body of Lutherans had 
separated from the Union church and were holding services at the home 
of a captain of the guards, Henry von Rohr. The movement was 
* Weber 14, p. 900. 
+ Treitschke, Vol. II, p. 243. 
X Schaff-Herzog II, 1376. 
