9. Actual Position of the New Union.--The Merger did not come as a surprise, for the uniting bodies, being of a common origin, had for a long period occupied essentially the name position as to doctrine and practise, exchanged delegates, and cooperated in various ways. Nor was it accompanied by any essential change in the doctrinal or practical attitude of any of the synods and congregations now constituting the new body. Yet it will be admitted that, by merging, the General Synod, constitutionally, made a confessional stride forward, while, as to their official attitude toward Lutheran practise, the United Synod in the South, and especially the General Council, took a step backward. For the level and measure of the new Union will naturally be that of the most liberal of the united bodies, _viz._, the actual present, practical as well as doctrinal, position of the synods which constitute the General Synod. According to the Preamble of the Constitution the object of the Merger was "to make the inner unity, which we" [the official bodies as such] "have with one another manifest in common confession, defense, and maintenance of the faith, and in united efforts for the extension of the Kingdom of God at home and abroad." However, the new Union was not the result of any discussions of, and subsequent agreements and settlements in, any doctrinal or practical differences. The "inner unity" of the merging bodies themselves, especially of the General Synod, never was a real agreement in the truth, but rather an agreement to disagree with respect to Lutheran doctrines and practise. The United Church was not born of real inner Lutheran unity of the spirit, but of the desire of external union, in spite of the lack of real doctrinal agreement. The Merger is in more than one way a concession to the original unionistic spirit of the General Synod. Especially the absence, in the Constitution, of a paragraph directed against pulpit- and altar-fellowship with non-Lutherans, and of a definite and satisfactory statement pertaining to antichristian societies, cannot but be viewed as an _ex professo_ lowering of the Lutheran standard to the laxism always prevailing in the General Synod. The real doctrinal and confessional position of the United Lutheran Church, apart from the merits and demerits of its Constitution, is, in the last analysis, not so much determined by its official declarations as by the actual conditions prevailing in its synods and congregations. The real standpoint of a Church is not the one written and subscribed to on paper, but which manifests itself in her actual teaching, life, and practise. Judged, then, by what the merging bodies actually were immediately prior to their union, the real United Lutheran Church in America is not nearly on a par with what its doctrinal basis would seem to warrant. G. A. Tressler, the former president of the General Synod, said in the _Lutheran_, November 7,