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theologically trained and properly ordained men serve
publicly as teachers of the word of God; slavery and
anti-slavery; local interests, North, South, East, West;
language preferences, as German, Swedish, Norwegian,
Danish, English—these were factors that brought serious
and numerous cleavages among them.
The number of independent Lutheran synods and
conferences in America were in 1861 no less than 42,
with 1366 pastors, or an average of 32 for each; 2,575
congregations, or an average of 61 in each organization,
and 270,786 communicants, or approximately 6,500 in
each. [1] Not only did these many external divisions
exist, but the quarrels among the separate groups had
assumed such a malicious character that a German
religious journal could with justice say, that by reason
of their bickerings and bitter polemics, the Lutherans
in America had become a byword and a reproach among
Christians throughout the world. [2]
It may be asserted without fear of successful
contradiction that the Swedish group of the Lutheran church
in America, in the period under consideration, perhaps
more than any other, escaped doctrinal and other
controversies, and strove to maintain friendly and peaceable
relations with the brethren in the faith in other groups,
but this did not save it from bitter attacks, serious
trials, and much anxiety. One reason for this, and an
important one, is to be found in the schisms that early
had arisen among the Norwegian Lutherans in America,
which occasioned serious factional quarrels. In order
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