his emendations on the margin, and after its final return it was reprinted with the benefit of these emendations; and it is in this improved form that we now present it. We find no difficulty in subscribing the document, and in presenting it as a fair, honest exhibition of Lutheran doctrine and practise as understood in the latitude in which we reside; and if we are not greatly mistaken, the great mass of our American ministers throughout the land would not make any material objection to it.'" Dr. Spaeth continues: "This attempt to substitute such an 'abstract' for the full and precise language of the Confession of the Church was a sort of forerunner of the famous 'Definite Platform,' which appeared about ten years afterward, and whose principal author, Prof. S. S. Schmucker in Gettysburg, was so much pleased with the 'abstract' that he referred to it again and again in his lectures and articles, and even made his students commit to memory its principal statements. In an article on the 'Vocation of the American Lutheran Church' (_Evangelical Review_, Vol. II, p. 510) he says: 'With the exception of several minor shades of doctrine, in which we are more symbolic than Dr. Baugher, we could not ourselves, in so few words, give a better description of the views taught in the Seminary [Gettysburg] than that contained in his "Abstract of the Doctrines and Practise," etc. No ground of apprehension as to our seminary, since the doctrines of our Symbols and the prevailing doctrines of our American Church are here faithfully taught.'" (112.) THE TENNESSEE SYNOD. ORGANIZATION.