§ 178.5. =The Evangelical League.=--At a meeting of the Prussian evangelical middle party in autumn, 1886, certain members, “constrained by grief at the surrender of arms by the Prussian government in the _Kulturkampf_,” gathered together for private conference, and resolved in defence of the threatened interests of the evangelical church to found an “Evangelical League” out of the various theological and ecclesiastical parties. Prominent party leaders on both sides being admitted, a number of moderate representatives of all schools were invited to a consultative gathering at Erfurt. On January 15th, 1887, a call to join the membership of the league was issued. It was signed by distinguished men of the middle party, such as Beyschlag, Riehm of Halle, etc., moderate representatives of confessionalism and the positive union, such as Kawerau of Kiel, Fricke of Leipzig, Witte, Warneck, etc., and liberal theologians like Lipsius and Nippold of Jena, etc.; and it soon received the addition of about 250 names. It recognised Jesus Christ, as the only begotten Son of God, as the only means of salvation, and professed the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation. It represented the task of the League as twofold: on the one hand the defending at all points the interests of the evangelical church against the advancing pretensions of Rome, and, on the other hand, the strengthening of the communal consciousness of the Christian evangelical church against the cramping influence of party, as well as in opposition to indifferentism and materialism. For the accomplishment of this task the league organized itself under the control of a central board with subordinate branches over all Germany, each having a committee for representing its interests in the press, and with annual general assemblies of all the members for common consultation and promulgating of decrees. § 179. LUTHERANISM, MELANCHTHONIANISM, AND CALVINISM. Widespread as the favourable reception of the Prussian union had been, there were still a number of Lutheran states in which the Reformed church had scarcely any adherents, _e.g._ Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Schleswig-Holstein; and the same might be said of the Baltic Provinces and of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Also in Austria, France, and Russia the two denominations kept apart; and in Poland, the union of A.D. 1828 was dissolved in A.D. 1849 (§ 206, 3). The Lutheran confessional reaction in Prussia afforded stimulus to those who had thus stood apart. In all lands, amid the conflict with rationalism, the confessional spirit both of Lutheran and Reformed became more and more pronounced.