also fought over the use of a liturgy. In general the Mercersburg men favored the new liturgy, which they helped write with Nevin on the committee, and the "Old Reformed Party" (the opponents), rejected it as innovative and as contrary to Reformed doctrine. The controversy, which came perilously close to causing a schism between the factions, continued until 1878, when the General Synod established a peace commission. The General Synod of 1884 approved a liturgy that was approved by the required number of Classes (first-level judicatories, equivalent to presbyteries). The controversy between the two parties ended in a compromise liturgy, and with each side having its own educational institutions: Mercersburg Seminary and Franklin and Marshall College for the Mercersburg Movement, and Ursinus College for the Old Reformed Party. In 1866 Samuel Miller wrote a defense of Mercersburg theology over and against Modernist theology, which he saw as a threat. He argued that Mercersburg theology assumes certain innate truths which apply to all people at all times in all places, while Modernist theology was rationalistic and depended on empirical and rationalist evidences to rest its foundational beliefs upon, which inevitably leads to infidelity. By the early 20th century, though, much of the controversy had been rendered moot by three factors. First, the rise of the strongly Protestant neo-orthodox movement among scholars and some RCUS clergy gained ascendence over the romanticism and metaphysics on which Mercersburg was largely based. Second, the resistance to at least modest liturgical innovations by some Old Reformed parishes gradually disappeared under the influence of the ecumenical liturgical movement. Finally, the RCUS' merger with the Evangelical Synod of North America in 1934 brought a significant pietist constituency to the new denomination, as well as a more mediating approach to doctrine, thereby reducing the polemical style of past generations. The seminary continues to this day (under the name Lancaster Theological Seminary), and its theology and influence still continue today, albeit in moderation, in congregations of the United Church of Christ descended from Reformed congregations which carried out the party's platform. Theology John Nevin summarized the Mercersburg Theology, or Movement, by saying, "Its cardinal principle is the fact of the Incarnation." He explained that by adding, "Christ saves the world, not ultimately by what He teaches or by what He does, but by what He is in the constitution of His own person." Nevin's most popular work was The Mystical