But the truth is, that the rejection of the custom of requiring assent to the Augsburg Confession by the fathers in the Pennsylvania Synod _fifty years ago_, is proof enough of their dissatisfaction with that document.

Nor did they hesitate distinctly to declare their dissent from some of its tenets.

This was done not only privately, but also in their occasional publications.

As to private confession and absolution, _they never adopted that practice in this country;_ but from the beginning employed a _public_ and _general_ confession, preparatory to the Lord's Supper, as our church in Sweden and Denmark did in the days of the Reformation.

As to the _ceremonies_ of the public mass, they were rejected by our church universally, some years after the diet of Augsburg, as private and closet masses had been before.