this twofold work of bringing us into closer sympathy with the Germans, and bringing them into closer union with ourselves." (40 f.; cf. 1875, 50.) In 1879, at Wooster, 0.: "The _Kirchenfreund_ has been published regularly in 24 numbers per year, since the last convention, and our report covers volumes IX and X. This has not been the most prosperous period of its history; on the contrary, we are obliged to report a very material loss of subscribers and proportionate diminution of receipts. We believe, however, that this loss is not attributable to any defects of the paper itself, nor to any circumstance whatsoever under our control, but rather to general causes, such as the continued and exhausting depression of the business interests of the country, change in the habits of our people, increase of good secular papers, and Sunday editions of local papers, westward removal of our people, etc." (37.) In the same year, 1879, Severinghaus declared that Missouri showed "all marks of the antichrist described in the Word of God." (_L. u. W._ 1879, 55.) 82. Dr. Milton Valentine (1825-1906), for nineteen years professor of Dogmatic Theology in Gettysburg, opposed the confessional trend within the General Synod, and, in important distinctive doctrines, occupied a Reformed position. In his _Christian Theology_ of 1906, Dr. Valentine sacrifices the inerrancy of the Scriptures in making concessions to modern geology, astronomy, and Evolution. He denies the total depravity of man; charges the Formula of Concord with Flacianism; teaches the humiliation of Christ's divine nature; denies that the divine majesty was communicated to His human nature; and questions the penal suffering of Christ. He teaches that Christ did not pay the full penalty for all sins, for then forgiveness of sin could not be spoken of; Christ's atonement merely made forgiveness possible for God, which followed under the condition that man consents thereto; faith precedes regeneration and conversion; God does not produce the act of faith, but only the ability to believe; the Holy Ghost merely enables man to fulfil the conditions of justification and to convert himself; God restores free choice, but man himself must make the choice and decide in favor of grace; the will of man is the third cause of conversion; children cannot believe, and are saved without faith of their own; Baptism does not work regeneration; heathen are saved if they follow their natural light; in the Eucharist Christ's body and blood are not received orally nor by unbelievers; close communion militates against the unity of the Church; a Church is orthodox so long as it adheres to the fundamental doctrines held in common by all Evangelical communions; deviation in other doctrines is no hindrance to church-fellowship; the government and officers of the State must acknowledge Jesus as Lord and His will as the highest law; legislation must be guided by the Bible; divorces not sanctioned in Scripture may not