Knight Templar, was chosen president of the General Synod. Prof. C.G. Heckert, president of the Theological Seminary at Springfield, 0., is a Freemason. Mr. J.L. Zimmerman, president of the Lutheran Brotherhood of the General Synod, who took a leading part in the Lutheran Merger movement, also is, and was publicly declared to be, a Mason. Nor did the practise cease of arranging for special lodge-services and entertainments of lodges. September 17, 1918, the Masonic Lodge of Camp Hill, N.J., held its anniversary dinner at the General Synod church, the women of the church serving the dinner, etc. (_Luth. Witness_ 1918, 386.) 103. New Formula Dead Letter.--Though one will readily admit that the Atchison Amendments signified a stride forward officially and formally, the actual conditions prevailing within the General Synod till the Merger in 1918 (the official indifferentistic and unionistic attitude of the General Synod as such, as well as the teaching and practise of District Synods, ministers, and congregations) were not in agreement, but in open conflict with the formula of 1913. In its issue of June 18, 1915, the _Observer_ stated: "The acceptance of this basis, they [the opponents of the new basis] further maintain, involves certain corollaries, such as the rule of 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only, and Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only'; the withdrawal of fellowship with other Christian bodies in general religious and moral movements, such as the Federation of the Churches, the International Sunday-school Lesson Series, and evangelistic campaigns, in which the congregations of a community unite their efforts to reach the multitudes of the unchurched and the unsaved. It includes also condemnation of secret orders, such as Masonry and Odd-Fellowship." (_L. u. W._ 1916, 58.) Such, indeed, was the price of the new doctrinal basis. The General Synod as a whole, however, was evidently neither possessed of the power nor even of the earnest will to draw the consequences of her new articles practically. The fact certainly is, as shown in the preceding paragraphs, that neither the General Synod as such nor its constituency did make any serious effort at paying the price required by an unqualified subscription to the Augustana as professed at Atchison. However, as long as a religious body contents itself with having a correct Lutheran basis merely incorporated in the constitution; as long as it shows no determination in reducing the principles of such basis to actual practise; as long as it objects to the discipline which this basis calls for; as long as it declines responsibility for contrary teaching and practise on the part of its ministers and congregations; as long as it adheres to the principle of agreeing to disagree on doctrines plainly taught in the Lutheran Confessions, and never to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare them free,--just so long even the very best Lutheran basis