151. Tennessee Lowering Her Standard.--The Tennessee Synod, whose early history is dealt with extensively in _American Lutheranism, Part I_, was the main factor in bringing about the change in the confessional attitude of the Southern synods. The _Lutheran Church Visitor_, March 8, 1917: "The Tennessee Synod helped the other synods to rise and regain their Lutheran feet. Since then she has helped them to keep their feet and to win stronger foothold." "The ministers of the Tennessee Synod," says Dr. Horn, "trained as they have been for the most part in the homes and companionship of older ministers, have not a wide and varied culture, but possess a profound acquaintance with the writings of Luther and a ready and genial knowledge of the Holy Scriptures." (_Dist. Doctr._, 1893, 178.) In the revised constitution of 1866 the original confessional statement of the Tennessee Synod, adopting the Augsburg Confession without limitation or qualification, was enlarged to include also the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Smaller and Larger Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula of Concord "as true Scriptural developments of the doctrines taught in the Augsburg Confession." In the same year the Tennessee Synod, following the example of her daughter, the Holston Synod, eliminated from her constitution the objectionable features respecting incorporation, theological seminaries, synodical treasuries, etc. Among the Southern synods the Tennessee Synod alone adopted rules against pulpit- and altar-fellowship and against holding membership in secret societies. Her endeavors to induce the United Synod to take a similar position failed. Indeed, the original constitution, submitted in 1884 at Salisbury, contained a paragraph against pulpit- and altar-fellowship, membership in lodges, and chiliasm. And when this paragraph was rejected, Polycarp Henkel, representing the Tennessee Synod, refused to vote for the constitution. In 1886 the Tennessee Synod adopted the Salisbury basis, but added a declaration which condemned chiliasm, lodge-services, pulpit- and altar-fellowship, and all church union and cooperation conflicting with pure Lutheran doctrine, and recommended that the United Synod embody in its by-laws a paragraph pledging theological professors to teach nothing contrary to these principles or the doctrines of the Lutheran Church. At the meeting of the United Synod in Savannah, 1887, Socrates Henkel proposed a corresponding by-law, which, however, was tabled till the next meeting. The Tennessee Synod reaffirmed its resolution with the threat that they would not cooperate with the United Synod until a by-law embodying the four points had been adopted. However, when the North Carolina Synod, with equal determination, took the opposite stand, Tennessee yielded, compromising on, and contending herself with, the resolution adopted in 1900 in which the United Synod assured the Tennessee Synod that, in their common work, they would earnestly