GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS UNION (Gustav-Adolf-Stiftung, Gustav-Adolf-Verein, Evangelischer Verein der Gustav-Adolf-Stiftung), a society formed of members of the Evangelical Protestant churches of Germany, which has for its object the aid of feeble sister churches, especially in Roman Catholic countries. The project of forming such a society was first broached, in connexion with the bicentennial celebration of the battle of Liitzen, on the 6th of November 1832; a proposal to collect funds fora monument to Gustavus Adolphus having been agreed to, it was suggested by Superintendent Grossmann that the best memorial to the great champion of Protestantism would be the formation of a union for propagating his ideas. For some years the society was somewhat limited in its area and operations, being practically confined to Leipsic and Dresden, but at the Reformation festival in 1841 it received a new impulse through the energy and eloquence of the Hofprediger Zimmermann of Darmstadt, and in 1843 a general meeting was held at Frankfort-onthe-Main where no fewer than twenty-nine branch associations, belonging to all parts of Germany except Bavaria and Austria, were represented. The want of a positive creed on the part of the Union tended from the first, however, to make many of the stricter Protestant churchmen doubtful of its probable usefulness; though on the other hand its purely negative attitude in relation to Roman Catholicism secured for it the sympathy of the masses. At a general convention held in Berlin in September 1846 a keen dispute arose about the admission of the Königsberg delegate Rupp, the founder of the “Free Congregations”; his exclusion, which was carried by a majority, called forth many energetic protests, and at one time it seemed likely that the society would ...