Spaeth, "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' (_Ev. Review_ II, 510) Schmucker said: '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 Practises.'" (1, 114.) Also the General Synod, in 1845, at Philadelphia, following in the steps of the Maryland Synod, authorized a committee to formulate the doctrines and usages of the American Lutheran Church. Schmucker, then, in preparing and publishing the Definite Platform, was certainly not so very much out of tune with the sentiments then prevailing in, and encouraged by, the General and some of the District Synods. Consistently they could not rebuke Schmucker without condemning themselves. Accordingly, the convention of the General Synod in 1857, at Reading, took formal action neither with respect to Schmucker, nor the Platform, nor the synods which had endorsed the Platform. And while the motion of Schmucker that the Board (which had published Mann's "Plea") should not publish any writings on the existing controversies was adopted, the motion of Kurtz for a "liberal platform" found no support. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 218.) But, while painfully avoiding any reference to the Platform as such, the General Synod more than tolerated its theology. The convention of 1859 cordially admitted the Melanchthon Synod, which charged the Augustana with teaching the alleged errors of regeneration by Baptism, of the real presence, private confession and absolution, and the denial of the divine institution of the Sunday. At Lancaster, 1862, Synod evaded a deliverance on the question whether the Augsburg Confession contains the errors with which it was generally charged; indirectly, however, it affirmed the question by electing B. Kurtz as President. (_L. u. W._ 1862, 217.) In 1864 the Franckean Synod was admitted with a confession of her own making, from which the distinctive Lutheran doctrines were eliminated. And in order to conciliate the protesting conservatives, the General Synod in the same year passed the resolution, adopted 1856 by the Pittsburgh Synod, which served the contradictory purposes of condemning Lutheran doctrines plainly taught in the Augustana, and, at the same time, acquitting the Confession of harboring these doctrines. Thus the General Synod, though unwilling to commit herself to the Platform as such, directly and indirectly approved of its theology.