impair the purity of the 'faith once delivered to the saints,' and that with new ardor we will devote ourselves to the work of the Gospel," etc. (Spaeth, 1, 378.) A stand similar to the one of the Pittsburgh Synod was taken in the same year, 1856, by the Hartwick Synod, in declaring, on the one hand, that they adopt the fundamental doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, other articles of this Confession, however, only when rightly understood and interpreted, and in rejecting, on the other hand, the doctrines enumerated in the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions. (_L. u. W._ 1856, 349.) On the part of the Franckean Synod this caused a declaration to the effect that they would not have withdrawn (1837) if Hartwick had taken this stand earlier. Hartwick answered, 1857, that they had not adopted a new platform, but merely the General Synod's "interpretation of the Augustana." (_L. u. W._ 1857, 352; 1864, 314; 1866, 119.) 65. The Pittsburgh Compromise.--The Pittsburgh resolutions, notably the third (adopted also in 1864 at York by the General Synod, and since known as the York Resolution), breathe a unionistic and, in part, a Reformed spirit. Conspicuous among their un-Lutheran features are the following. With respect to the Lutheran doctrines rejected by Schmucker and his compeers, the Pittsburgh compromise declares in general: "We as brethren in Christ agree to differ." The theological attitude of the notorious union letter of 1845 was thus practically reaffirmed and the doctrines distinctive of Lutheranism declared irrelevant. Every Lutheran synod, according to the Pittsburgh agreement, was, indeed, to recognize the Augustana unmutilated, but, on the other hand, grant complete liberty to deviate from its doctrines in the manner of the supporters of the Platform. In addition to this unionistic feature the Pittsburgh compromise, at least in three important points, makes concessions to the Reformed tenets of the Platform theology. It does not only fail to confess the Lutheran doctrines of the Lord's Supper, absolution, and the Sunday, at a time when these doctrines were universally denied and assailed also within the General Synod, and when, accordingly, a failure to confess them was tantamount to an open denial, but itself rejects them. Concerning the Sunday, Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession declares: "For those who judge that by the authority of the Church the observance of the Lord's Day instead of the Sabbath-day was ordained as a thing necessary, do greatly err. Scripture has abrogated the Sabbath-day." Over against this plain teaching the General Synod always held that "the observance of the Sunday is binding on all by divine requirement." (_Lutheran Observer_, Oct. 1, 1915.) Siding with this un-Lutheran position, the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions declares: "We adhere to the divine authority of the Sabbath as the Lord's Day." Again, absolution by Christians, and especially the minister of a