Raise the Lutheran Banner High and Wave It Joyfully!
Let the Lutheran Fire Blaze Brightly!
A Sermon by C. F. W. Walther
Translated by Matthew C. Harrison
Preached on the Occasion of
The Celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Formula of Concord
May 29, 1877
Holy Trinity Congregation
Saint Louis, Missouri
In the Name of Jesus
Let us pray:
Lord God, three hundred years ago you did something extraordinary for our fathers, and we celebrate it today. The Church that You built so gloriously through Your servant lay in rubble and ruin. Her heroes were fallen. The watchmen on her walls had become traitors in her midst. The light of Your pure Word You had ignited in her was extinguished. Her lamps were overturned. The banner of Your confession lay in the dirt, stained and torn. Her previous unity in the faith had turned into bitter division. Her enemies were in triumph and were singing her funeral hymns. She had dissolved to a small, dispersed little flock, weeping in the dirt and complaining: "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten what is mine." Yet behold, when those suffering were destroyed and the poor cried out, then You spoke, O Lord in heaven: "I will rise, I will come to your aid that man shall teach with confidence."
Today is the blessed day that You brought about this help. So today our hearts are filled with joy. Our mouths are full of gladness and our tongues are filled with praise. Today we "enter Your gates with thanksgiving and Your courts with praise."
O help us now, so that we do not merely thank You today with heartfelt festival hymns for everything great You once did for our fathers. Through this festival jubilation ignite in us the fire of the first love that once burned in the hearts of our fathers. Set our entire American Lutheran Zion ablaze. As we assemble as troops for battle, rally her once more with a trumpet call around the old faithful banner of Your pure Gospel.
O grant that in these days all the children of Zion who have fallen from the truth will rise again. Grant that all the erring repent. Grant that all who have become weak in the faith become strong. Grant that all who have become lukewarm in love become fervent. Grant that all who have forsaken the act of confessing become courageous in confession. Grant that all those who have remained true be filled with your Spirit and gifts, and thus the Church of the pure Confession again become a city of God upon a high mountain, for the blessing of all Christendom, for the gathering of a great multitude of Your chosen, also in these last times, to the praise and honor of Your name forever and ever. Amen.
Text: Isaiah 49:14-17
Zion speaks: The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten that which is mine. Can a woman forget her children so that she does not have mercy upon the son of her womb? And although she forsake them, I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you in the palms of My hands. Your walls are ever before Me. Your builders will make haste, but your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you.
Beloved sons and daughters in the Lord of the American Lutheran Zion! Today, three hundred years ago, on May 29, 1577, six pious and learned servants of the Lutheran Church, Martin Chemnitz, Jacob Andreae, Nicholas Selnecker, David Chytraeus, Andrew Musculus, and Christopher Koerner, after putting the finishing touches on that Confession of faith of our Church, which bears the name The Formula of Concord, signed their names to it with the following words:
This is our teaching, belief and confession in which by God's grace we shall appear with intrepid hearts before the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ and for which we shall give account. Nor shall we speak or write anything privately or publicly, contrary to this confession, but we intend through God's grace to abide by it. In view of this we have advisedly, in the fear and invocation of God, subscribed our signatures with our own hands.
It was an act of great historical significance for the Church and the world that had incalculably important consequences. This act did not take place in a great solemn manner as happened when the Augsburg Confession was delivered in 1530. The presentation of that Confession took place in view of the whole world in the emperor's chapel, with hundreds in attendance. Those first subscriptions to the Formula of Concord, on the other hand, happened privately in the narrow confines of a room in the library of the small cloister church at Bergen near Magdeburg, Germany.
The solemn reading of the Augsburg Confession, the foundational Confession of our Church, took place in one of the most glorious assemblies of the empire. The most powerful man on earth at the time, on whose kingdom the sun never set, Emperor Charles V, sat on his throne. At the emperor's side was his brother Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and Hungary. Around him were an entire retinue of electors, princes, and other officials of the kingdom. There were a great number of foreign emissaries from royal and princely courts, a papal legate, six cardinals, and many other Roman Church prelates. After the reading of the Confession, it was translated into the various languages of Christendom and sent to various parts of Europe.
The first subscription of the Formula of Concord, on the other hand, happened on this date, quietly, at the hands of only six ministers of the Church. In 1530, the evangelical princes, when they delivered the Augsburg Confession to the mighty enemies of their faith, did so at the risk of their possessions and lives. Therefore, even before the Confession was delivered, Margrave George of Brandenburg was forced to declare to the Emperor: "Before I would deny my God and His Gospel, I would here kneel before Your Imperial Majesty and have my head chopped off." The subscription of the Formula of Concord on the other hand, in 1577, involved no such danger. As its title indicates, it was much more a formula of unity, which would be delivered to those who wanted to gather around this banner of peace in brotherly unity.
And how so? Is the Formula of Concord still so valuable today for our Evangelical Lutheran Church that we should celebrate it with a festival of thanksgiving and praise on the day it was completed, three hundred years ago? Yes, indeed! A Lutheran who has not already fallen away, and to whom his religion is still worth something, will say, "If we Lutherans are silent today, then the stones must cry out!" With the help of the Holy Spirit, this is what I want to point out to you in this holy hour of festival celebration. On the basis of the text of prophecy just read, I want to present a sermon to you with this theme: The Formula of Concord is a glorious monument of the gracious blessing of God on our dear Evangelical Lutheran Zion. Why? For three reasons: (1) through the Formula of Concord God rescued our Church from the threat of death; (2) through the Formula of Concord God gloriously rebuilt our Church and blessed Christianity; (3) through the Formula of Concord God protected our Church for all times from those who would destroy it from within.
- If we want to convince ourselves that the Formula of Concord is a glorious monument to the gracious blessing of God on our dear Evangelical Lutheran Zion, we must first vividly recount the condition in which our Church found itself before this Confession was accepted. It was the darkest page in her history. From 1517, when Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses to his death in 1546, our Church rose amazingly, gloriously, and rapidly. From Luther's death to the year 1577 was a time of rapid demise and destruction in our Church. Hardly twenty-five years after Luther's death, the glorious, majestic, divinely built Church of the Reformation, the Church of the pure Word and unadulterated Sacraments, lay in rubble and ashes. Here and there a small tower rose over crumbled remnants, like ruins that bear witness of a glorious past. Before Luther died, the universal hymn of Lutheran people was Luther's own heroic and victorious hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Scarcely had Luther's mouth closed forever when this hymn was silenced. In short, if I were to sketch with a few words a true picture of the condition of our Church at that time, I could find nothing more appropriate than the words of our text: "Zion said, 'The Lord has forgotten me, the Lord has forgotten what is mine.' "
How did this happen? Had what the Lutherans so prized and sung with such fervor and with such a joyful faith become a lie? "The Word they still shall let remain, nor any thanks have for it." Had the word finally fallen? No! The word could not be overcome by any power of the world, not even the gates of hell. But the men to whom God had entrusted His pure word as an act of His grace, they . . . had fallen. In true prophetic spirit Luther himself, in his very last sermon preached at Wittenberg, predicted that Satan would tear our Church apart after his death. He asserted, "Where he can not accomplish it through the pope and emperor he will do it through those who are now with us in doctrine."
Indeed, in private conversations, Luther told a number of his trusted friends, referring
precisely to his Wittenberg colleagues in office, "After my death none of these theologians will remain steadfast." Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened. After Luther's death, our Church was torn apart. In fact, it was neither the pope nor emperor who caused it to happen. Only a few months after Luther's death, the Smalcald War broke out, which was so ominous for Lutherans. It wasn't until 1555 that the Religious Peace of Augsburg gave the Lutherans complete religious freedom and freedom to worship. The Lutherans fell into deeper crisis around this time when the emperor, at the threat of bloodshed, attempted to force a union formula, called the Interim, through which our Church would again be subjected to the pope. Only after the Augsburg Peace did these threatening storm clouds pass forever. But it was not enemies from the outside who nearly brought our Church to ruin, but traitors on the inside.
Saxony, once the cradle of the Reformation, and in particular, the University of Wittenberg, posed the greatest threat. From Wittenberg the light of the pure Gospel had once gone out into all lands, but after Luther's death, falsifications of the Word of God stretched like shadows of death from Wittenberg over the entire Lutheran Church. In the same pulpit from which Luther once proclaimed the pure Gospel in Pauline power, and from which Luther with the zeal of Elijah had thundered against all ungodly things in matters of doctrine and life, from this very same pulpit were now heard the glistening voices of deceivers.
From the same academic chair that Luther used to equip thousands of students streaming in from every corner of Christendom, as true ministers of the Word in doctrine and defense, now sat professors who made it their business to imprint upon their students a new Gospel of reason in place of the old Gospel of the Holy Scriptures. Wittenberg publishing houses had printed the works of Luther, the one prophesied as the angel with the eternal Gospel, who flew through the heavens of the Church. From these publications fell the dew and manna of heaven on parched hearts. They were filled with light, comfort, and a willingness to die for the faith. These writings of Luther were the roaring thunder of God against all falsifiers of His Word, terrifying them and unmasking them. Like bolts of lightning from God's hand, the entire arrogant edifice of the Antichrist was shaken to its very foundations. Now, from the very same printing houses I say, appeared document after document that had no other purpose than to snuff out the holy fire emblazoned by Luther's writings and once again to tear out of hearts "God's Word and Luther's doctrine."
In order to achieve this goal more easily, there arose the devilish lie that just before his death, Luther had recanted his doctrine, and that it was Melanchthon who, after Luther's death, would make right what Luther had destroyed. Thus the old original Augsburg Confession was jettisoned and another falsified Augsburg Confession was introduced, written by the unfortunately now vacillating Melanchthon. He changed it to find favor among Luther's enemies. It was deceitfully called the "improved" version. The Small Catechism itself, that priceless little book by Luther, was cast aside and a new Calvinistic catechism was put in its place. Wittenberg was regarded everywhere as the place where the pure doctrine of Luther was born and where the teachers were Luther's rightful followers in office and heirs of his spirit. In all of Germany and beyond, nearly everyone who held an office in the Church became followers of the now heretical Wittenberg professors. Thus new doctrine spread farther and farther like a plague from city to city, indeed, from village to village. The word of the apostle was fulfilled, "Their talk will spread like gangrene."
At this time the ruler of Saxony was Elector August. He was pure and upright and committed to the Lutheran faith. The most important fallen theologians of Saxony conspired with like-minded high political officials. They used every hypocritical and deceptive practice they could think of to deceive the unsophisticated elector and make him their willing pawn. They accomplished this hellish plan only too well. With the help of the elector, whom they had charmed, they caused hundreds who had remained faithful to Luther's teaching to be removed from office as dangerous destroyers of the peace, indeed as heretics who had fallen away from Luther's doctrine. Many were thrown into prison and finally, in most cases, banished from the land, along with their wife and children, and driven into misery.
The entire Lutheran Church was afflicted by a civil war and became like people who are cut and wounded. To be sure, outside Saxony there still were faithful students of Luther who rose up and spoke and wrote clearly against this departure from the faith. But this just seemed to be the last convulsions of the Lutheran Church that was already in the throws of death. In Calvinistic temples, God was publicly thanked that the Lutheran Church had now also become Calvinistic. Calvinistic teachers only cared about how they could bury the old Augsburg Confession and the Church that previously confessed it.
In fact, my friends, the way it looked then, our church seemed to be dying. Death seemed unavoidable. Everything that had been done to try to rescue it and restore the unity in faith, doctrine, and Confession that had been lost, resulted only in failure. The little flock sounded its plaintive hymn: "The Lord has forgotten me! The Lord has forgotten that which is mine." O you of little faith! Precisely had God's hour struck, in which He, as it says in our text, said, "Can a woman forget her children so that she does not have mercy upon the son of her womb? And although she forsake them, I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you in the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me."
Then what happened? Oh, the miracles of God! Precisely when the traitors in our Lutheran Zion fortress were cheering with thoughts of victory, planning to hand the fort over to the enemies, when they finally were free to step out into the light, then suddenly heaven thundered: "You shall come this far, and no farther; here shall lay waste your haughty breakers, for here is Immanuel!" When the situation was most dire, according to God's ancient way of working, there was help in the next moment. God brought it about that Elector August received secret letters. In these letters his theologians and secular counselors gladly celebrated how marvelously they had fooled the pious, simple prince. Against his will they had made him a tool for the destruction of the Lutheran Church. The scales now fell from the pious prince's eyes! With abhorrence, revulsion, and shock he now saw how contemptible the deception was.
Now he allowed those deceivers to experience for themselves the bitter lot to which they only shortly before had subjected hundreds of innocent people. The prince banded together with other blessed Lutheran princes. He was placed at the head of the group who had remained true to the old doctrine of Luther, or had now been woken up by God to return to it.
But now how should this Church, which was bleeding from a thousand wounds be healed? How should she be purified of the many heresies that had forced their way in? How should the general division be overcome and peace, unity, and oneness be re-established? To this end, my dear friends, there was only one means: Individuals in the fellowship of the faith simply returned to the truth, which had been abandoned. The good old standard of the Church of the Reformation was brought out from the dust. The old oath was solemnly renewed. The faithful host now closed ranks around this banner for defense and offense.
Three hundred years ago this day, in a Cloister at Bergen, it was this, and nothing else, that was accepted. After unspeakable difficulty, the Formula of Concord finally came to be. This Confession was no new, allegedly improved Confession. It was nothing but the documented repetition of that earlier Confession acknowledged by all Lutherans from the beginning: The Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology [Defense] of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, and both Catechisms of Luther. The authors of the Formula of Concord simply dealt with the articles over which there had been controversy. They pointed out simply what the old Confessions taught regarding these matters, using the clear words of the older Confessions. They confirmed this teaching with Luther's writings and solemnly uncovered and rejected false interpretations of these old Confessions.
Look what happened when the old flags of Luther were again unfurled and waved high over the pinnacles of our Lutheran Zion. It astonished friend and foe alike when it became evident that unlike in the time of Elijah, when only seven thousand had not surrendered the faith, right in the midst of the confusion, millions had not bowed the knee before the idols of the new doctrine. More than eight thousand church and school officials, led by three electors, twenty-one princes, twenty-two territorial rulers, four barons, and thirty-five independent cities, subscribed in the name of their congregations to the new formula of unity in the truth, with deep thankfulness and high holy joy.
Thus the Bergen Cloister became a second Eisleben, in which Luther was born yet again for the Church. The secret and open enemies of the Lutheran Church had solemnly prepared to bury it. But now it was raised again from its apparent death. Miraculously rescued from her eminent demise, she was joyously heard crying out throughout Christendom: Victory! "This came about by the Lord's doing and is a miracle before our eyes." And so today is "a day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." - My brothers and sisters in the Lord, through the Formula of Concord, God not only miraculously rescued our Church from threatening death, but He also gloriously rebuilt and established new blessings for Christianity a second time. As the Lord in our text again promised to His fainthearted Zion: "Thy builders will hasten."
As foretold, three hundred years ago the Formula of Concord, just before Pentecost, fulfilled the prophecy! Our Church through this Confession celebrated its Easter of resurrection. Now followed a long, glorious Pentecost season of new life and rich blessing.
The Formula of Concord removed the debris of false doctrine from the immovable foundation of our Church that had bedeviled her for thirty years after Luther's death. Then as our text says, her "builders hastened" to build the old house of God in its original glory and beauty on this foundation, now cleared. For the next one hundred years and more, God gave our Church a great host of blessed, learned, highly enlightened men, burning with a passion for God's pure Word. These intelligent men constructed a doctrinal building before which today even unbelievers are forced to stand and take note, like men standing in front of a remarkable cathedral towering toward the heavens, standing silent and full of awe. All of it is built on the foundation of the Word of God. It is wonderfully constructed all the way up to the golden cross upon its cupola, so that no stone can be removed without shaking the entire structure or disfiguring it. Every treasure of divine knowledge, which through the Word of the Reformation was brought to see the light of day out of the mine shaft of the Divine Word, was now gathered into new writings like holy, well-protected vaults. All the spoils, which in the struggle of the Reformation were taken from the enemies on the right and the left, were now placed as trophies of victory in the arsenals of our Church for all times. The good old weapons of Christian knighthood, once used to overcome Rome and a false Protestantism, were again set in motion.
The house of the righteous that had been promised was now fulfilled in the Church of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession: "Riches and abundance will be in his house" (Psalm 112:3). "The Lord thy God will bless thee, as he has told you. So will you lend to many peoples, and you will borrow from no one" (Deuteronomy 15:6). After the acceptance of the Formula of Concord, the holy learning of God produced a flowing river of imperishable works of faithful investigation of the Scripture. Out of Luther's writings flowed nearly all the beautiful books on doctrine and devotional books. Even today not only all Lutherans, but also pious souls of other churches, are edified by them. Indeed, their pages may be yellowed, but they are more sought after and purchased for a higher price than the gold-embossed books of modern times. They truly are a golden fruit, produced from the seeds planted by the Formula of Concord in the bosom of the Church, three hundred years ago today.
In the divine garden of our Church, purified from the weeds of false doctrine, now fragrant, heavenly flowers of anointed prayer sprouted and grew, full of consolation and devotion. Today these writings still lift the hearts of readers to God. The evangelical sermons, now resounding again in our Church, proclaimed God's great deeds for the redemption of the sinful world. They attracted, like the trees of paradise, hosts of the birds of the heavens, which nested in their branches and sang to the Lord sweet hymns, which still today refresh hearts in all Lutheran churches, schools, and homes.
In short, before the Formula of Concord, our Church lay like a poor woman begging in the dust, scorned by the people and despised by the nations. She became an admired prophetess, priestess, and queen of the new covenant. Our Church became a mighty work in the kingdom of the truth, a blessing for all Christianity on earth. Streams of living water flowed from her, watering and producing fruit from the barren deserts of the world. The fortress of our Church was so solidly established upon the foundation that even the storms, troubles, and ravages of the Thirty Years' War could not destroy her. When the Formula of Concord was finally achieved, there was a prophecy, made in vain, that it would only lead to greater division and thus was not a work of God and would quickly see its demise. All these prophets of doom were brought to shame. The truth is that our Concordia, for more than a hundred years, became a flaming wall around our Church, bringing her true unity and true peace. And-O wonder of the divine blessing of Grace!-still today, after three hundred years, there are here in the new world thousands and thousands of our brothers and sisters gathered in their churches joining with us on this day in singing hymns of jubilation, praising and thanking God for the divine gift of the Concordia. - There is still one more reason why the Formula of Concord is such a glorious monument to the gracious blessing of God on our dear Evangelical Lutheran Zion. For all times, God will use the Formula of Concord to preserve her from destroyers within her midst. The Lord, according to our text, finally had given his fainthearted Zion this promise: "But thy breakers and destroyers you shall be free of."
Indeed, my dear friends, no Confession has been hated as much as this, the final Confession of our Church, the Formula of Concord. While many who say they want to be Lutherans confess the Augsburg Confession, this is not enough to bring the enemies of our Church out in the open. Many who present themselves as Lutherans are the most bitter enemies of the Formula of Concord, which is nothing other than a repetition of the teaching of the Augsburg Confession. The Formula of Concord was accused of being a formula for division instead of a formula for unity, a tool of intolerance, the true bone of contention within Protestantism.
But why? This simple reason is this: The brief Confession presented at Augsburg could be misinterpreted according to one's own understanding. Because this was so, it was turned into a shield behind which one could fight undisturbed against the very doctrine it contained. The Formula of Concord, however, brought this fraudulent game to an end forever. In an undeniable manner, and from the clear words of the Augsburg Confession, it demonstrated what the only true meaning of that confession is. The Formula of Concord is nothing other than a new staff for the old flag. Thus the bitter hatred! The Augsburg Confession was the letter of separation, which our Church in the year 1530 once gave to the papacy. So also, the Formula of Concord is the letter of separation, which our Church in the year 1577, presented to the sham Protestants, who had invaded the Church, and to all their false brothers. Like a faithful guard standing watch at the gate, the Formula of Concord stands at the entrance of our Lutheran Zion and demands stubbornly of every individual who desires to enter that he give the password of the Unaltered (and un-misinterpreted) Augsburg Confession.
The Formula of Concord is a powerful fortress and wall protecting the harbor of our city of God, a city of pure Confession. With its mighty weapons it guards her against the entry of all ships sailing under a false flag. Many want to use the Augsburg Confession only as a mask to try to place themselves under the name "Lutheran." The Formula of Concord forces all to lay aside their mask and reveal their true face. Three hundred years ago, the Formula of Concord again hoisted the Unaltered Augsburg Confession according to its true meaning, as the flag on the rooftops of our city of God. When this happened, all those who had stood deceitfully under the banner of the Augsburg Confession soon left the great assembly and placed themselves under the banner of Zwingli and Calvin. Look how the promise in our text has been fulfilled ever since by our formula of unity, the Formula of Concord: "But thy breakers and destroyers will leave thee."
Perhaps at this point some of you are asking, "But aren't there new 'breakers and destroyers' who force their way into the Church in this and previous centuries, despite the Formula of Concord?" I answer: Yes, indeed! They have forced their way in. But why did this happen? The banner of this glorious Confession was still present to be sure, but it lay wrapped up in the dust, hidden from the Lutheran people, and its slumbering guards did not make use of it.
Arise then! Arise you Lutherans of America! Let us use the glorious freedom we taste here in America to make sure that the old banner of Confession is raised. In our old fatherland it lies in musty ruin. Let it be hoisted here again. Let us gather around this banner as a faithful and courageous people of Confession. Let us renew the old oath of loyalty today, which we Lutherans made already at our confirmation. Let our teachers in church and school be sworn to that oath! Next to God's Word, let us examine and correct everything we hear and read according to this Confession. Finally let us work and fight, standing in rank and file, only with those who are prepared to follow this banner. The storms of the world and false brothers may rain on us. They will not tear our banner apart, but only more fully and broadly unfurl it before the eyes of the whole world.
In the old world it is evident that the sun of the pure Gospel is setting, which once rose in Augsburg and on the Bergen Cloister. Many true Lutherans from the old world are looking with longing hope to our young American Lutheran Church as a little house, but one that is free. Because she is free, she is called to salvage and rescue the pure Gospel here in the new world in these last times, that holy relic entrusted to our Church. O arise! Arise, American Lutheran Zion, and let there be light! You, her watchmen, forward! Lay hold the holy banner, raise it high and wave it joyfully! All of you, you children of this Zion, man and wife, old and young, follow those who show themselves true bearers of the flag! Take heart and be joyful! The Lord, who is a God of truth, is with us! By that sign we shall conquer, though all powers of darkness in the midnight hour plot against us and rise against us on the battlefield. The battle will rage hot and ever hotter! Finally we, persistent to the end, will be taken in triumph into the congregation above, to the eternal festival of jubilation. Grant this to us Jesus Christ, You, our leader in the fight! Amen.
Translator's Note
This is a sermon preached by C. F. W. Walther at the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Formula of Concord, May 29, 1877, in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, St. Louis, Missouri. This event is described in the following report: This sermon was preached by Dr. Walther to a general gathering of the Gesammtgemeinde (those four congregations over which Walther was pastor) in the course of a two-day celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Formula of Concord in St. Louis, Missouri. In the morning all gathered at old Trinity, and in the evening at each of the four churches. There were lectures at the seminary, festival addresses, choirs, and other music. Walther preached at the main service at Trinity. Professor Schaller's Jubelfestlied was the main congregational hymn of the day. There was a large choir from the choral societies of the four parishes, and a number of students took part. There was an orchestra made up of students from the seminary. They played and sang the
Latin Te Deum composed by Mozart. "While the creed was sung by the congregation [Luther's hymn, We All Believe in One True God], the Pastor of the congregation, Professor C. F. W. Walther, General President of the Missouri Synod, ascended the pulpit and delivered the festival sermon." The original account and the sermon are found in Denkmal der dritten Jubelfeier der Concordienformel im Jahre des Heils 1877. Enthaltend Beschreibungen deiser Feier, auf dieselbe bezuegliche Predigten, Auszuege aus solchen, Predigtdispositionen und Lieder. Herausgegeben im Namen der evang.-luth. Synodalconferenz von Nordamerika. St. Louis, Mo. Zu haben bei M. C. Barthel, General-Agent der deutschen ev.-luth. Synode von Missouri, Ohio u.a. St. 1877. This wonderful volume contains the accounts of celebrations of the Formula of Concord that took place throughout the Synodical Conference in 1877.
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