basis of the symbols of our Church, as contained in the Book of Concord of 1580, are the only proper means for an exchange of such convictions as are still divergent, and which, by the grace of God, may lead to a unity on the basis of our beloved Confession." At Fort Wayne, in November, 1867, the General Council renewed the resolution "that we sincerely respect the honest preferences of our brethren [Missouri] in regard to the best means of uniting our Church, and that we are willing to set apart a time, during the future sessions of this body, when it will meet them simply as a Free Conference." And, no answer having been received, the Council, at Pittsburgh, 1868, instructed its secretaries to bring the Fort Wayne action again to the attention of the Missouri Synod. In the following year Missouri answered that it was not its desire to deal with the General Council as such and during the sessions of the same; that by such a side-dealing justice could not be done the matter; that they desired and regarded Free Conferences as the proper means to reach the end contemplated. (Ochsenford, _Doc. History_, 152 ff.) Thus, from the very beginning, Missouri, in the interest of real unity as a prerequisite of union, urged free conferences and doctrinal discussions, while the General Council offered discussions "in regard to the best means of uniting our Church," at the same time insisting on a mode which involved a recognition of the unionistic procedure adopted in organizing the General Council. Considering the facts that some of the synods, uniting in 1866 and 1867 with the General Council, had several months before belonged to the General Synod; that ostensibly they had severed their connection on technical grounds; that all along they had been committed, more or less, not only to a false confessional basis, but also to Reformed doctrines and un-Lutheran practise, etc., the Missouri Synod, without sacrificing its anti-unionistic principles, could hardly have taken a different course of action than it did. Moreover, the subsequent history of the General Council, down to the Merger in 1918, has proved conclusively that Missouri's original evaluation of the General Council's confessionalism was certainly not very far from the mark. It was, then, the persistent refusal, on the part of the General Council, of free conferences, such as Missouri could have attended without an _a priori_ violation of her convictions, that brought about and prolonged the deadlock obtaining between the two bodies. As late as 1904, at the time of the Inter-synodical Conferences, Dr. Jacobs declared that he would not meet Missouri in a free conference without a preceding joint service of prayer; and to this the _Lutheran_ assented. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 224. 370.)