146. Actual Conditions.--All sectarian churches formally acknowledge the Bible, yet they reject many of its doctrines. So a Lutheran synod may, in a formal and official way, accept the Lutheran symbols, and at the same time ignore or reject its material content. Witness the Lutheran state churches in Europe and the General Synod in America. In a measure, the actual conditions also within the congregations and district synods of the United Synod in the South have always been in conflict with their truly Lutheran basis. False doctrines, especially pertaining to the Puritanic observance of the Sabbath, were held and taught within the Synod. Without a word of criticism, for example, the _Lutheran Church Visitor_, July 13, 1911, published the following from the _Sunday-school Times_: "Don't use a public vehicle on Sunday unless you are prayerfully convinced that it would be sinning against God and man not to do so. Is not that a reasonable and safe principle? Is any other principle a safe one? A very limited amount of Sunday travel seems to be necessary. Probably more than ninety-nine one-hundredths of it is unnecessary and therefore wrong. To use a trolley car or train to go to church on Sunday may or may not be right; it is simply a question of God's expressed will for the individual at that particular time. To walk, or to attend another church would sometimes be the solution. To make a mere convenience of Sunday travel, under any circumstances, would seem to be a violation of the spirit of the day. But God will make each case clear to each surrendered seeker after the light of God's will, if the doing of God's will and the avoiding of sin by the widest possible margin are the only impelling motives."