21. Spaeth, and Jacobs on the General Synod.--After referring to the unionistic, rationalistic, and Socinian degeneration in the Pennsylvania and New York Ministeriums prior to the organization of the General Synod, A. Spaeth continues: "With this powerful influx of rationalism, and with the tendency of the remaining positive elements of our Church to assimilate and unite themselves with the surrounding 'Evangelical Denominations,' there was evident danger for the Lutheran Church in America of losing her historical connection with the fathers, and surrendering the distinctive features for which they contended, and as a religious society becoming simply a member of the Reformed family. At this point of threatening disintegration and dilapidation, the first steps were taken toward the establishment of the General Synod, which was certainly an honest effort to improve the state of affairs, to gather the scattered members of our Lutheran Church, and to preserve her as such on this Western Continent. Viewed in this light, the formation of the General Synod was 'an offspring of reviving Lutheranism,' as Dr. Krauth called it. But the difficulty and danger arose from the fact that two conflicting and irreconcilable elements tried to unite in it with a sort of compromise, the one, latitudinarian, un-Lutheran, unwilling or unable to prize the treasures of the Mother Church of the Reformation, and overanxious to exchange them for Puritan legalism and Methodistic 'new measures'; the other, conservative, holding on to the inheritance of the fathers, and hoping almost against hope to bring the Church back to their good foundation. If the former element succeeded in keeping out of the General Synod's original constitution any direct and outspoken reference to the historic confession of the Lutheran Church, the latter might have thought themselves secure in the provision which denied to the General Synod the power 'to make or demand any alteration whatever in the doctrines hitherto received by us.' But the first-named party, at the outset, had the popular sympathy on its side; it was the 'American' over against the 'foreigner'; it was aggressive, and had the advantage of having able and determined leaders, and thus, during the first twenty-five years of the General Synod's history, easily ruled the day, while the Lutheran consciousness of the second party slowly awoke from its slumbers, and those that were to be its leaders on the day of battle were quietly maturing from boyhood into manhood." (1, 320.) H. E. Jacobs, endeavoring to view the origin of the General Synod in its historical context, writes: "The General Synod must be regarded as a very important forward movement, and its influence as beneficial. It necessarily was not without the weaknesses that characterized the Lutheran Church in America at that time. One who ignores the entire historical development will find much to criticize and condemn, when