American Lutheranism, page 139 by Friedrich Bente
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union with a Directorium invested with governing and judicial powers, to whose decisions Lutheran as well as Reformed pastors and congregations had to submit, lacked vitality, and, apart from flagrant denials of the truth, was bound to lead to destructive frictions. After an existence of several years the "Unio Ecclesiastica" died a natural death, the Directorium, as far as has been traced, holding its last meeting in 1794. By 1804, the ministers who had organized this union body, all save one, were dead. The congregations eked out a miserable existence, becoming, in part, a prey to the Methodists and Baptists. Thus also the promising Lutheran field of South Carolina was finally turned into a desert, chiefly in consequence of the dearth of Lutheran preachers, who really could have been produced from this very field. (G., 601 ff.)
THE NORTH CAROLINA SYNOD.
70. Unionistic from the Beginning.--Most of the Germans in North Carolina came from Pennsylvania. In 1771 the congregation at Salisbury (which was in existence as early as 1768, and soon thereafter erected a church), together with the congregations in Rowan Co. and in Mecklenburg Co., sent a delegation to England, Holland, and Germany, asking for assistance. The result was that Pastor A. Ruessmann, who died in 1794, and Teacher J. G. Arends (Ahrends), who soon officiated as pastor, were sent in 1773. In 1787 Pastor Chr. E. Bernhardt arrived, followed by C. A. G. Stork (Storch) in 1788, and A. Roschen, who returned to Germany in 1800. But it was not genuine Lutheranism which was cultivated by these German emissaries. Many of the books coming from Helmstedt were of a rationalistic character. Also the North Carolina Catechism ("Nordkarolingischer Katechismus . . ., entworfen von Johann Kaspar Velthusen, Doktor und ordentlichem Lehrer der Theologie, erstem Prediger in Helmstedt und Generalsuperintendent") savored of rationalism. The confessional and doctrinal degeneration of the pastors in North Carolina appears from, and is attested