The Only Help For Resurrecting Our Church

Quoting C.F.W. Walther:

If our Church, which is now lying in the dust shall rise again and not gradually degenerate into a body which is Lutheran in name only, without any characteristics of the Church of the Reformation, then all the fine words about ecclesiastical propriety, about the re-introduction of ancient rites and ceremonies, all attempts to invest the office of the ministry with special glory and authority, all this will be utterly in vain. The only help for resurrecting our Church lies in a renewed acceptance of its old orthodox confessions and in a renewed unconditional subscription to its Symbols.

Quoted from Walther's essay titled "Why Should Our Pastors, Teachers and Professors Subscribe Unconditionally to the Symbolical Writings of Our Church," delivered at the Western District Convention in 1858. Printed in the April, 1947 Concordia Theological Monthly.