Hoping that our fraternal relations may grow stronger each revolving year," etc. (29.) In 1857 and 1859 the same cordial attitude was assumed toward the Evangelical Church Diet (Kirchentag) in Germany, a letter, in behalf of the Diet, having been received from Bethmann-Hollweg, then Secretary of ecclesiastical affairs in Prussia. (_Proceedings_ 1857,21.24; 1859,32.37.38.) In 1909 the General Synod approved of the admission (in 1907) of the _Vereinslutheraner_ within the Prussian Union into the "Allgemeine Evangelisch-Lutherische Konferenz." (22.) Siding with the Evangelicals, the _Lutheran Observer_, October 9, 1863, declared: "The Evangelical Union of the West forms a wholesome balance against the old-Lutheran tendency of the Missouri Synod." (_L. u. W._. 1863,379.) It was, therefore, not in dissonance with the traditions of the General Synod, when, as late as 1909, the _Lutheran Evangelist_ proposed a union of the General and Evangelical Synods, maintaining that General Synodists and Evangelicals were natural allies. (_L. u. W._ 1909,180. 421.) CHRISTIAN UNION. 37. "Father" of Evangelical Alliance.--At Chambersburg, Pa., 1839, the General Synod passed the resolution "that the thanks of this Synod be presented to the American Society for the Promotion of Christian Union _for this acceptable present_." The present received by the members of Synod was Schmucker's "Appeal to the American Churches" or "New Plan of Apostolic Protestant Union." The purpose of this book was to promote union among the Protestant denominations on the basis of the ecumenical confessions. It proved to be a powerful factor in the movement which resulted in the organization of the Evangelical Alliance. Schmucker himself, together with Kurtz and Morris, attended the "World's Convention" at London in 1846, where they united with 800 ministers of 50 different denominations in founding the Alliance, which assumed the motto: "_Unum corpus sumus in Christo_," Schmucker, in particular being feted as the "Father" of this union. Naturally enough also the General Synod took a lively interest in the Alliance, though it was not a union of churches or of representatives of churches, but of individual Christians who were in sympathy with its aims. In 1869, for example, the General Synod "resolved that the delegates to the World's Evangelical Alliance, appointed at Harrisburg, be continued with the addition of Rev. S. Sprecher, D. D., and Rev. S. S. Schmucker, D. D." (64.) At the international conferences of the Alliance the General Synod was regularly represented, also at its last convention in 1914 at Basel. On a local meeting of the Alliance in 1902, at Easton, Pa., the _Lutherische Kirchenblatt_ (General Council) reported, in substance, as follows: "More than 60 delegates were present: Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Evangelicals, Free Baptists, Lutherans (General Synod and General Council), Mennonites, Moravians, Presbyterians,