It is much to the credit of both of them that, in organizing and promoting their two sharply competing sects, they never failed of fraternal personal relations.

They worked together with one heart to keep their people apart from each other.

The Christian instinct, in a community of German Christians, to gather in one congregation for common worship was solemnly discouraged by the two apostles and the synods which they organized.

How could the two parties walk together when one prayed _Vater unser_, and the other _unser Vater_?
But the beauty of Christian unity was illustrated in such incidents as this: Mr.Schlatter and some of the Reformed Christians, being present at a Lutheran church on a communion Sunday, listened to the preaching of the Lutheran pastor, after which the Reformed minister made a communion address, and then the congregation was dismissed, and the Reformed went off to a school-house to receive the Lord's Supper.[196:1] Truly it was fragrant like the ointment on the beard of Aaron! Such was the diligence of Schlatter that the synod or coetus of the Reformed Church was instituted in 1747, a year from his arrival.

The Lutheran synod dates from 1748, although Muehlenberg was on the ground four years earlier than Schlatter.