the Communion at the time when it is administered. If any public invitation is given, it should be at the time when the Communion and preparatory services are announced, and such persons be requested to make personal application to the pastor, so he may know who they are, and judge of their fitness to join in the Communion. The door should not be opened wider to strangers than to children of the household." (54.) In 1904 Dr. Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod declared: "We do not see that in the circles of the General Council, as a whole, the churchly practise has improved and become less offensive, and that earnest proceedings are instituted against members who are guilty of offensive practise--a state of affairs which our Synod never can and will sanction." (_L. u. W._ 1904, 516.) INTERDENOMINATIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 124. Sound Principles.--The doctrinal basis of the General Council as well as a number also of its later declarations and resolutions as to church-fellowship and cooperation with non-Lutherans are sound. They breathe the Lutheran spirit revealed in the manly words of C.P. Krauth: "The Lutheran Church can never have real moral dignity, real self-respect, a real claim on the reverence and loyalty of her children while she allows the fear of denominations around her, or the desire of their approval, in any respect to shape her principles or control her actions. It is a fatal thing to ask, not, What is right? What is consistent? but, What will be thought of us? How will our neighbors of the different communions regard this or that course? Better to die than to prolong a miserable life by such a compromise of all that gives life its value." (_L. u. W._ 1917, 468.) In 1909 Dr. T.E. Schmauk, then president of the General Council, declared in regard to the World's Missionary Conference: "We regret our inability, on account of our sound fundamental principle of unity as a prerequisite to cooperation, to enter in as one of the active elements in such a meeting." The committee reported: "We approve of the President's position as to the World Conference and the Federal Council." In 1913 the General Council resolved with respect to participation in "The World Conference on Faith and Order": "While regretting that it is unable to unite with the Communion of the Episcopal Church in arranging for, and conducting, a Conference on Faith and Order, yet, nevertheless, it hereby resolves to appoint a Committee on the Unity of Faith, which shall be authorized, without participating in organization or arrangement of any conference, to present and set forth the Lutheran faith touching particular doctrines, either independently, or when they are under discussion in any conference or gathering, without, however, granting the committee any power of association, arrangement, fellowship, or practical direction, but confining it to the one specific function of witness and testimony to the faith that is in us, and which we rejoice to confess,