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THE STORY OF 
 JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
THE STORY 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 AUGUSTUS FIELD BEARD 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 

 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909 
 BY AUGUSTUS F. BEARD 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE story of JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN, 
 written in French, was published in 
 Strasburg in 1831, five years after his 
 'death. The author, D. E. Stoeber, a lawyer, a 
 friend of Oberlin, was in his youth a student 
 under his instruction and for several years a 
 member of his household. In the preparation of 
 his biography he had the assistance of Madame 
 Rauscher, Oberlin's daughter, whose husband had 
 succeeded Oberlin in his pastorate, with full ac- 
 cess to his complete and careful diary of more 
 than sixty years, and whatever writings were 
 left by Oberlin. In his preface he says : " I am 
 going to relate his life with sincerity and truth. 
 The family of Oberlin, to which I have been 
 bound by fraternal friendship for nearly forty 
 years, has been kind enough to confide numerous 
 manuscripts of the illustrious deceased to me; 
 other friends have furnished me notes ; my own 
 remembrances have done the rest." 
 
 M188S83 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The result was an exhaustive compilation of 
 facts which are well-nigh unreadable in form. 
 A limited edition, intended for the parishes of 
 Oberlin and the Alsatians who were then ac- 
 quainted with his work in their mountain coun- 
 try, was sold by subscription. It soon passed out 
 of print; few copies are now in existence. 
 
 Some minor biographies gleaned from this 
 work were published in Germany, France, and 
 England at about the same period, rather in the 
 style of memoirs than in balanced biographies. 
 None, I think, was given in what seems to me 
 the necessary historical setting. These also have 
 gone the way of this kind of literature for more 
 than half a century. 
 
 The perusal of Stoeber's Life of Oberlin, a 
 copy of which I obtained in France, perhaps the 
 only one in this country, led me to visit the scene 
 of his labors. It was in the summer of 1886 
 that I made my first study of the little village of 
 Waldersbach in the mountains of the Vosges. 
 Less than a hundred houses comprise it, promi- 
 nent among which is the manse which Oberlin 
 built and in which he lived. It was occupied at 
 the time by the pastor whose accomplished wife 
 is the granddaughter of Oberlin. Sixty years 
 had then passed since Oberlin's death, but the 
 
 vi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 house remained almost entirely as he left it. 
 His library was there, his manuscripts which 
 were accessible, and much of his furniture as 
 aforetime. The church near by was without 
 change in appearance since he preached in it his 
 last sermon. 
 
 Sixteen years afterwards it was my privilege 
 to repeat this visit, taking abundant time of sev- 
 eral weeks to acquaint myself with the country 
 and its local history, to tramp over its steeps and 
 study its people, to trace if possible in the con- 
 ditions of the present somewhat more of the 
 secret of this notable life hidden away in the 
 hills among a neglected peasantry, the grace of 
 which now nearly fourscore years after his death 
 has not lost its charm. 
 
 I find it quite impossible to designate my 
 indebtedness for what I have gleaned here and 
 there, especially among the descendants of Ober- 
 lin's former parishioners and in my personal 
 visits and interviews with the descendants of his 
 family. 
 
 The Vie de J. F. Oberlin, Pasteur au Ban-de- 
 la-Roche, par D. E. Stoeber, is the established 
 authority for the facts of Oberlin's life and work 
 which I have undertaken to retell. Le Ban-de- 
 la-Roche, Notes Historiques et Souvenirs par 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Mme. Ernest Roerich, has placed me under ob- 
 ligations in the way of local history. 
 
 It has seemed to me that a life so remarkably 
 prophetic in its anticipations of many modern 
 educational theories and methods, so entirely in 
 advance of its day in the apprehension of the 
 brotherhood of man and in ,the largeness of 
 Christian fraternity and in his theories of social 
 betterment and service, so unique and heroic in 
 Christian consecration, with its lessons and in- 
 spirations for an age in which the temptations 
 are great to unduly exalt the material, should 
 be recalled and remembered. As a study of sym- 
 pathy with people in low conditions and of faith 
 in their possibilities through the application of 
 Christian truth exampled in a great life, the story 
 of Oberlin must be significant. 
 
 The fact, moreover, that a great institution 
 of learning like Oberlin College bears and honors 
 his name with the rich inheritance of his spirit, 
 should add interest to the history of this remark- 
 able man. 
 
 vin 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I AM very glad to respond to Dr. Beard's 
 request to add a word of introduction to his 
 life of Oberlin. As president of the college 
 that is proud to bear Oberlin's name and counts 
 that name one of the richest parts of its inherit- 
 ance, it is perhaps not unnatural that I should 
 be asked to speak this introductory word ; and I 
 do this all the more gladly because I have myself 
 read the manuscript with great interest. 
 
 But, quite aside from these personal connections, 
 it is a pleasure to speak any word that may help at 
 all to bring to others acquaintance with the great 
 soul here portrayed; for I am convinced that 
 few lives deserve so well to be kept before the 
 attention of men as the life of Oberlin. Just 
 because Oberlin was, to use Dr. Beard's own 
 words, "a unique figure in missionary consecra- 
 tion and service, a great man who lived a great 
 life in isolation, who yet made himself felt beyond 
 the boundaries of France, an educational and 
 theological prophet, anticipating much modern 
 thought in both directions," the record of his life 
 cannot fail to be full of suggestion along many 
 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 lines. It contains inspiration to good citizen- 
 ship, to high public service, to truer living, to 
 better teaching, to more devoted ministry. 
 
 Just as I have hoped that I might believe that 
 the college named after this man has been able 
 to continue in its life something of his splendid 
 qualities, and especially that it might not fail 
 to achieve his own rare combination of breadth 
 of view and passionate devotion to the cause of 
 God and the needs of men, so I may wish for the 
 readers of his life that they may feel the inspiring 
 contagion of his spirit. 
 
 HENRY CHURCHILL KING 
 
 OBERLIN COLLEGE 
 
 December 3, 1908 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. YOUTH AND PREPARATION I 
 
 II. THE PARISHES IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE 
 
 VOSGES 2I 
 
 III. EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE . . . 33 
 
 IV. MAKING A HOME 57 
 
 V. A ROAD TO CIVILIZATION 7 1 
 
 VI. CALL TO AMERICA 79 
 
 VII. BEREAVEMENT AND RENEWED CONSECRATION TO 
 
 PUBLIC WELFARE 95 
 
 VIII. DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION m 
 
 IX. SUCCEEDING YEARS X 35 
 
 X. PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 151 
 
 XI. AFTERMATH l8x 
 
 XI 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN Frontispiece 
 
 WALDERSBACH (FORMERLY WALDBACH) ; HOME AND CHURCH 
 OF OBERLIN 36 
 
 HOME OF OBERLIN AT WALDBACH 66 
 
 FOUDAY CHURCH AND FACTORY (ONE OF OBERLIN'S 
 CHARGES) 122 
 
 Xlll 
 
I 
 
 YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 (1740-1767) 
 
 JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN was born 
 August 31, 1740, in Strasburg when it 
 was a city of France. The Oberlin family 
 one of the most prominent among the Protes- 
 tants of the city was marked by superior in- 
 tellectual cultivation and an earnest religious 
 faith. His father was a professor in the gym- 
 nasium, a school preparatory to the university, 
 and was highly esteemed as an educator; an 
 elder brother who had already won distinction 
 as a linguist was an honored professor in the 
 university. An inscription on his tomb in the 
 famous church of St. Thomas in Strasburg, by 
 the side of the mausoleum of Marshal Saxe, per- 
 petuates the record of his high rank and fame 
 as a scholar. His mother, a daughter of one of 
 the professors of the university, was a woman 
 
 3 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 of rare endowments, with a poetic spirit and 
 musical gifts, exceptionally witty in conversation, 
 who made a profound impression with her strong 
 and happy character upon her children. The 
 father was both the instructor and playmate of 
 his children. At a place named Schiltigheim, 
 where he owned a cottage and a few acres of 
 land, and where the family passed their sum- 
 mers, the villagers would often see the professor 
 with an old drum acting as drill sergeant and 
 drummer at the same time, putting the boys 
 through military evolutions. Fritz as he was 
 always called, even into his later years be- 
 came passionately fond of these exercises, and 
 the ideas of strictness, obedience, and discipline 
 behind them remained with him and account for 
 certain subsequent characteristics. 
 
 As in the case of most teachers in all places 
 everywhere, there was a small income and a 
 large family. By necessity the strictest economy 
 reigned in the household. Such straitened con- 
 ditions are not pleasant, but they are often turned 
 to advantage, and this was the experience of 
 the Oberlin family. A few sous were given to 
 each of the children weekly, to encourage them 
 in habits of prudent calculation and to train them 
 in the practise of benevolence. Often when the 
 
 4 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 family exchequer ran unexpectedly low and bills 
 to be paid came in, the children would be able 
 to meet the emergency from their boxes of sav- 
 ings. This spirit of economy, and at the same 
 time of charity, together with the practise of keep- 
 ing accurate accounts, took deep root in the boy's 
 heart and went into the formation of his char- 
 acter. Many incidents of his methods of econ- 
 omy and his accompanying ideas of responsibility 
 for charity are related of his boyhood and youth. 
 
 In one of his unedited sermons a passage oc- 
 curs with its side-light upon him in this early 
 period of his life : " I remember in my youth 
 passing through a crowded street and hearing 
 a girl crying out in anger, ' Look, see that fine 
 lady with the pearls around her neck! She 
 bought them with the money my father was 
 cheated out of. My father was shoemaker for 
 her father and was not paid. Our fathers are 
 dead; I am poor and wretched, but his daughter 
 is dressed like a peacock.' ' Oberlin related this 
 as an illustration of dishonesty in not meeting 
 just obligations. 
 
 His fellow students discovered in Oberlin this 
 frugality and economy which they mistook for 
 penuriousness, at the temporary cost of his 
 personal popularity. One of them, while passing 
 
 5 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 with him over a bridge in the city, determined 
 to give his classmate a lesson, corrective of his 
 supposed parsimony. Taking a coin from his 
 pocket he hurled it into the water, saying, " See 
 that, Fritz ? " There was no reply to this foolish 
 performance, but later on, meeting a blind man, 
 Oberlin gave him a coin such as the student had 
 thrown away, simply saying to his companion, 
 " See?" So early had he learned the lesson of 
 regard for those who suffered in the hardships 
 of life. 
 
 In his university course the home influence 
 revealed itself to indicate how he was developing 
 his positiveness of character. While he was well 
 endowed mentally, he was slow in memorizing 
 not an uncommon experience with minds which 
 make their original channels rather than run into 
 those of others. Determined at any cost to over- 
 come what he considered a serious defect, he 
 used the early morning hours in memory prac- 
 tise, when his mind was fresh and retentive, and 
 for fear of oversleeping mornings and thus 
 losing his self-imposed discipline, he habitually 
 placed pieces of wood in his bed to prevent him 
 from sleeping too soundly. During his entire 
 college course he was thus strict with himself, 
 in many ways permitting no opportunity for im- 
 
 6 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 provement to be lost. He could not satisfy him- 
 self to take hold of a study without every effort 
 to master it. Whatever the extra labors, what- 
 ever denials of temporary pleasure, he counted 
 as nothing when they stood between him and 
 his purpose. 
 
 His university studies were made under emi- 
 nent professors, and from them he took his de- 
 gree of Bachelor of Arts at the age of eighteen 
 years, and when, five years later, he had won the 
 degree of Doctor of Philosophy, he remained a 
 student yet undecided as to his future vocation. 
 He was not at this time looking forward to the 
 pulpit. His mother was a regular attendant at 
 the church services of Pastor Lorentz, whose 
 theological views were considered so question- 
 able that Fritz did not care to be among his 
 hearers. To please his mother, however, he 
 would accompany her to church, and this re- 
 sulted in his becoming sympathetic with the 
 pastor and a regular attendant upon his preach- 
 ing. This Pastor Lorentz, who was also pro- 
 fessor while Oberlin was a student in the uni- 
 versity, was* subsequently suspended by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities for variance from their 
 standards, and his classroom was deserted by 
 the students. Oberlin regarded the action as un- 
 
 7 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 just and championed the professor against the 
 popular majority. At the hours of recitation 
 formerly held by the professor Oberlin proceeded 
 daily to his house, rang the bell, bowed gravely 
 to the one who opened the door as a mark of 
 his great and undiminished respect, and retired. 
 The repetition of this amused the students and 
 made him the subject of their good-natured 
 banter. It was no question for him, however, 
 what they thought or chose to do. He believed 
 that his professor had been wronged, and for 
 one, if the only one, he proposed to stand for 
 him. Any coward can go with a majority. 
 Oberlin was not a coward. 
 
 By this time Oberlin had thought out for him- 
 self his way into the gospel ministry and he soon 
 " took orders " in the Lutheran Church. But he 
 had settled the question of direction only, not 
 yet of service, and when he was urged to take 
 a pastoral charge he replied, " No, I am not 
 qualified. To preach to others, I need more of 
 the experience of life. Moreover, I do not wish 
 to labor in some comfortable pastoral charge, like 
 either of those suggested, where I can be at ease. 
 The question is, Where can I be most useful ? " 
 He was not attracted to the parishes which others 
 were ready to seek and eager to seize. He would 
 
 8 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 choose rather a work which would not be done 
 unless he should do it. 
 
 The thought which at this time appears to 
 have been uppermost was the divinity of thor- 
 ough preparedness. Meanwhile he found an op- 
 portunity to assist both himself and his parents 
 by acting as tutor to students who needed help 
 over the hard places in their studies. In this 
 way he proved himself to be " apt to teach/' 
 and was much sought after. This led to his 
 engagement as a private tutor in the family of 
 the most eminent surgeon in Strasburg, Dr. 
 Zeigenhagen. Oberlin saw at once the rare ad- 
 vantages of this position, and without neglecting 
 his specific duties as tutor eagerly devoted him- 
 self to medical and surgical studies. He also 
 took up the study of botany, which he pursued 
 diligently. He remained here until he had made 
 no small attainment in those studies. He did 
 not know how he might use this knowledge, but 
 he did realize that every mastery will sometime 
 prove itself in unthought-of ways and be of 
 service. 
 
 From the time that Oberlin was twenty years 
 of age two years after his university gradu- 
 ation he began to keep a journal. In those 
 days this was the unfailing repository of one's 
 
 9 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 religious experiences. It was quite the custom 
 for people of an introversive temperament and 
 of severe and earnest life to commit their thoughts 
 and feelings to paper, as few do now in this less 
 subjective age. Oberlin's journal, still extant, 
 contains the most manly resolutions to rule his 
 life strongly and severely. " I wish to force my- 
 self/' he writes, " to conquer my natural inclina- 
 tion, neither to eat nor drink more than necessary 
 for my health. I wish to force myself to rule 
 my anger, which so often gets the best of me. 
 I wish to content myself with the least possible 
 in the way of clothing and furniture, that I may 
 always put aside some portion of my income for 
 the poor, and to pay those who serve in such a 
 way as will satisfy them, but in so far as possible 
 to get on without unnecessary help." His " act 
 of consecration to God," dated January i, 1760, 
 indicates the intensity of his feelings: "I am 
 now convinced of Thy rights. I desire nothing 
 more than to belong to the holy God. I give 
 myself to Thee this day in the most solemn way. 
 I consecrate all that I am and all I have, the facul- 
 ties of my soul, the members of my body, my por- 
 tion and my time." This was endorsed as follows : 
 " Renewed at Waldbach, January i, 1770." 
 We may not regret the fact that self -dedication 
 10 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 to God is no longer likely to take these ancient 
 forms of devotion, but certainly there is great 
 promise for future usefulness when a serious- 
 minded youth in looking out upon life can find 
 himself ready to take as truthful a view of his 
 relationships to God and man as did this young 
 student at twenty years of age. Nor was this 
 a mere formal act of consecration on the part 
 of Oberlin. His fervency of soul was without 
 affectation. He had come to desire to devote 
 himself, with full sincerity in the love of God, 
 with his whole heart and soul and strength, to 
 the service of his fellow men. His sympathy 
 with humanity, his practicality, his humor, his 
 cheerfulness of spirit, and his love and apprecia- 
 tion of nature were sufficient to counteract any 
 tendency toward an unnatural mannerism of 
 piety. 
 
 At this time Oberlin had been offered a chap- 
 laincy in a French regiment and had accepted 
 it. The military drills of his youth had left 
 him with strong predilections for such a life, and 
 he saw in it a prospect of peculiar usefulness, 
 gratifying to his sense of duty in that it would 
 enable him to influence and protect young men 
 away from the restraining influences of home 
 and subject to great temptations. In anticipa- 
 
 ii 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 tion of this and preparatory to the assumption 
 of his duties he had resigned his tutorship and 
 taken lodgings in the city, where he was pursuing 
 a special course of reading. Particularly he was 
 studying Voltaire, that he might be better able 
 to combat the current unbelief in the army. 
 This was his plan, but it was not God's purpose. 
 
 On a cold February evening, while Oberlin 
 was lying on his pallet with a distorted face 
 and suffering terribly from the toothache, a mis- 
 sionary from the Vosges Mountains entered the 
 apartment. He sent a scrutinizing glance around, 
 evidently struck with the poverty of the room, 
 and at once introduced himself. 
 
 " Ah, Pastor Stuber," said Oberlin, " welcome, 
 Herr Pastor; but what can have brought you 
 here to me?" 
 
 "First of all, of course, the desire to make 
 your acquaintance; then, because I have some 
 business with you." 
 
 " You certainly surprise me, Herr Pastor. It 
 must be some very urgent business that has 
 brought you up to the third story to an un- 
 known student such as I am." 
 
 " Not so unknown as you suppose, Herr Ober- 
 lin. I have learned about you. Your name has 
 been mentioned to me as one who does not fol- 
 
 12 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 low the beaten paths or routine of ministerial 
 candidates. You have studied surgery and medi- 
 cine. You have a knowledge of botany and 
 medicinal herbs. Is not this so ? " 
 
 " In my leisure hours I paid some attention 
 to botany; Dr. Zeigenhagen has taught me 
 bloodletting, and I have had some experience 
 in the anatomical room." 
 
 Oberlin had raised himself upon his pallet and 
 was listening with swollen cheek upon his hand. 
 
 "And you speak French?" 
 
 " A little, Herr Pastor." 
 
 " Your brother, Jeremias, assures me that you 
 speak it perfectly. This is very rare in Stras- 
 burg. It is a most uncommon example among 
 our candidates." 
 
 " I tell you, my dear pastor, that my brother 
 flatters me and spoils me. It is not a good thing 
 in him, and I would much prefer that he would 
 communicate to me some of his extensive scien- 
 tific knowledge rather than encourage me in 
 idleness." 
 
 " Indeed, my young friend, you must have a 
 very agreeable brother; and yet as professor 
 he is not understood to be very indulgent. Will 
 you be kind enough to explain to me what this 
 little pan means that I see there by your lamp ? " 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 A deep blush ran over Oberlin's face. " Pardon 
 the cooking, Herr Pastor! I take my dinner 
 with my parents, and I bring away some bread 
 which my good mother gives me. At eight 
 o'clock I put this little pan over my lamp, place 
 my bread in it, with a little water and salt. Then 
 I go on with my studies." 
 
 " You are my man," exclaimed Stuber, rising 
 from his chair. 
 
 " What is the matter, Herr Pastor ? Do you 
 think I am ridiculous in my habits ? " 
 
 " You live on the diet of Lacedaemon, Yes, 
 you are my man." 
 
 Oberlin was confused, not to say excited. He 
 did not comprehend Stuber. 
 
 Stuber answered, "I see you do not under- 
 stand me; but I have got my man and I shall 
 not let you go. I want you for the pastorship 
 of Waldbach in the Ban-de-la-Roche." 
 
 Oberlin, overwhelmed with surprise, offered all 
 manner of objections, but Stuber in intense ear- 
 nestness continued with excited voice: 
 
 " Yes, sir, you are my man. The Master you 
 have to serve calls you by my voice. Listen; 
 you must become pastor at Waldbach. In the 
 name of the Master and Lord of us all I tell 
 you this. There are a hundred poor and wretched 
 
 14 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 families in want of the bread of life; four or 
 five hundred to direct and to save. Yes, poor 
 and wretched and friendless ! " 
 
 Oberlin's heart was in a tumult. This was 
 just the field of labor he had wished his ideal 
 of missionary work; but there were difficulties in 
 the way. He had been appointed chaplain to a 
 regiment in the French Army called the " Royal 
 Alsace/' and his word of acceptance had just 
 been given. Ought he to seek release from the 
 post of duty, even supposing he might be released ? 
 He frankly thought not. He urged this upon 
 Stuber, saying, " My dear brother in Christ, you 
 honor me very much. But there are everywhere 
 souls to save and direct, and in the regiments 
 of the king more than elsewhere. The devil is 
 close on the heels of these young, gay officers 
 that display themselves so gracefully on the 
 promenade and on parade; the devil is inces- 
 santly ruining the soldiers in the taverns and 
 in all manner of bad places. I assure you, my 
 dear pastor, that as chaplain I am going to hunt 
 Satan; besides, I have given my word; and 
 furthermore, may I without offense ask you why 
 you quit the Ban-de-la-Roche if the need is so 
 great and there is so much good to be done 
 there?" 
 
 IS 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN, 
 
 " My young friend, I shall not leave the Ban- 
 de-la-Roche until my place there is filled by such 
 a man as you. I leave because my poor wife is 
 dying far from medical aid. She cannot live 
 there; the air is too severe for her/' 
 
 " That alters the case," said Oberlin, holding 
 out his hand to Stuber. " Your parish must then 
 be in a very cold region." 
 
 " I do not wish to exaggerate anything, my 
 dear Oberlin. Six months of winter; at times 
 the cold of the shores of the Baltic; a wind like 
 ice sometimes comes down from the mountain 
 tops above us; the sick and the dying are to be 
 visited in remote, wild, solitary places among the 
 forests. My wife often was almost dead with 
 terror, supposing me lost in the snow-storms. It 
 is like the passages of the Alps. Have you ever 
 been in Switzerland ? " 
 
 " Never, but I can easily imagine it. But then 
 I suppose your summers are fine and somewhat 
 compensate for the rigors of the winter?" 
 
 " Four or five short months interrupted by 
 winds and storms. Yes, the fragrant odors of 
 some meadows perfume the summer air ; and rye 
 ripens well in good seasons." 
 
 " And your parishioners, are they well dis- 
 posed?" 
 
 16 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 " Not too much so, not too much, I must say 
 without calumniating them! There are some 
 good souls there who are much attached to me; 
 but they are all frightfully ignorant and untract- 
 able and proud of their ignorance. It is an iron- 
 headed people, a population of Cyclops. When 
 I went there the schoolmaster was a swineherd 
 in the summer; in winter he taught the children 
 in a miserable hut the little he knew. I have 
 contended now these ten years with a rebellious 
 material. I had left Waldbach for a few years 
 of ministry in the delightful town of Barr. It 
 was in the midst of vineyards, and my young 
 family flourished like the vines in the warm sun, 
 but when I heard that my successor had allowed 
 the bark freighted with souls which I had com- 
 mitted to his charge to drift, my heart bled. I 
 returned again to Waldbach and laid hold of 
 the rudder, but now I can hold it no longer. 
 I have told you the reason why." 
 
 Oberlin was taking in the situation. He 
 slowly lifted his large blue eyes and asked: 
 " Have you any material resources to aid the 
 poor? You say most of them are extremely 
 poor." 
 
 " My parishioners have nothing. I myself have 
 very little. My wife's small fortune is already 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 exhausted in relieving a little the general misery. 
 Four districts even poorer than the mother parish 
 are also td be served; not a single practicable 
 road from village to village; deep mud holes 
 among the cabins and huts ; the fruit, wild cher- 
 ries, apples, and pears fit only for swine; and 
 the inhabitants abandoned to the completest in- 
 difference have not the least concern to amelio- 
 rate their condition. The Intendant of Alsace, 
 who knows the British Islands, has told me that 
 my parishioners and their pigs are a miniature 
 Ireland. 
 
 " I have not told you all," continued Stuber. 
 " I will come again at another time. I much fear, 
 however, that you will answer me as two of 
 your fellow candidates have already done : ' It 
 is much pleasanter to live here in a good climate 
 than up there among the rude people in that in- 
 clement air of the Vosges.' ' 
 
 " I do not say that, Herr Pastor ; far from it. 
 Every one of your words has knocked at the 
 door of my heart like the blows of a hammer. 
 What agony it is to find one's self thus in life 
 at a dividing road without knowing which way 
 to go! Ah, what a regret that I gave my 
 word to accept the chaplaincy only a few days 
 since ! " 
 
 18 
 
YOUTH AND PREPARATION 
 
 Stuber understood the struggle in Oberlin's 
 heart. 
 
 " I will not urge you now," he said. " I will 
 come to-morrow. We will see what can be done 
 to release you from your engagement. I will 
 come to-morrow; perhaps then I may get your 
 answer." 
 
 " Indeed, it is not necessary to wait till to- 
 morrow to ask God to enlighten us. We will 
 appeal to him now to tell us on which side duty 
 may be." 
 
 Thereupon Stuber knelt on the tiles of the 
 attic and prayed, while Oberlin with him implored 
 the guidance of the Lord. The Spirit of God 
 was with them. This poor upper room was very 
 near to heaven, and when the two lifted their 
 heads, in silence they joined hands. The struggle 
 was over. It was settled that Oberlin would go 
 to the mountains if the vacant position in the 
 army could be satisfactorily filled. 
 
 Conviction was action. There were not lack- 
 ing those who were more than ready to take the 
 attractive chaplaincy. Oberlin was honorably re- 
 leased, and on March 30, 1767, in his twenty- 
 seventh year, he arrived at Waldbach. 
 
 There have been many battles in Strasburg. 
 The Roman armies have fought there. The 
 
 19 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Germans have triumphed there. The tricolors 
 of France in turn have waved in victory there; 
 but the issues of the moral conflict between faith 
 and sight, between the previous choice and the 
 present call to a life of self-abnegation, made 
 this decision a more glorious conquering than 
 ever came to any hero of war. 
 
 20 
 
II 
 
 THE PARISHES IN THE MOUNTAINS 
 OF THE VOSGES 
 
II 
 
 THE PARISHES IN THE MOUNTAINS OE 
 THE VOSGES 
 
 (1584-1767) 
 
 TO understand or appreciate the mission 
 of Oberlin it is necessary to keep in 
 sight certain facts of history. The dis- 
 trict to which he went had been from early his- 
 tory a disputed territory. Alsatia formed a part 
 of Ancient Gaul, and as such was included in 
 the Roman empire. The Romans held it for 
 half a century, when it passed to the Franks. 
 About the middle of the tenth century it became 
 German. Later, in 1648, most of it was ceded 
 to France, and subsequently nearly all which had 
 remained German provinces were made over to 
 France. 
 
 Thus the "Ban-de-la-Roche" was a French 
 district, then German, then French again, and 
 since 1871 is once more German. In each case 
 until the last it was held as a fief. The people 
 
 23 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 were vassals oppressed by wars and often by 
 cruel lords. 
 
 This district contains two parishes of about 
 nine thousand acres, one Rothau, and the other 
 consisting of the little villages of Waldbach, 
 Wildersbach, Solbach, Bellefosse, Belmont, and 
 Fouday. Waldbach, the home of Oberlin and the 
 most nearly central, is about three thousand feet 
 above the sea. The other villages are higher. 
 
 While much of the history of this region of 
 the Vosges is evidently legendary, there is au- 
 thentic authority that in the fifteenth century 
 there was a Roman Catholic priest directing the 
 worship in the little village of Fouday, though 
 the date of the beginning of the village is not 
 given. In 1584 the Prince of Valence the 
 lord of the fief sought to give a new start 
 to several enterprises in the Ban which a pre- 
 vious owner had undertaken but had failed to 
 develop. A mine for copper was opened at 
 Waldbach, and one for silver in the neighboring 
 hamlet of Belmont, with furnaces and forges. 
 The prince decided, since affairs were as bad 
 as they could be, that a change of religion would 
 be to the advantage of his fief, and concluded 
 to introduce in the Ban in their behalf and his 
 own the " Reformed religion/' 
 
 24 
 
PARISHES IN MOUNTAINS OF VOSGES 
 
 The Catholic priest at Fouday by this action 
 was to lose his living. It was very poor, but so 
 was he, and such as it was he wanted it. It 
 was easier for him to exchange his Catholic gown 
 for the pastoral garb of the " Reformed " than 
 it was for him to move away. His convictions 
 did not distress him either way, and as the 
 ecclesiastical transition would be less embar- 
 rassing than a removal, like the Vicar of Bray, 
 he decided to stay. Remain he did in the 
 capacity of Protestant pastor, as good as he was 
 before and no better. We may be sure he did 
 not greatly help the " Reformed religion " or any 
 other. 
 
 About the year 1600 the district had become, 
 through a deadly epidemic, almost entirely de- 
 populated, and as it was important to the min- 
 ing interests that a new people should be found 
 to make good the losses of the original inhab- 
 itants, many Swiss Protestant people were in- 
 duced to move into the hills. Refugees from 
 bitter religious persecutions in France also sought 
 shelter there. 
 
 The new attempt at civilization in the Ban, 
 however, went no further than the beginnings. 
 Immediately and almost an exact century after 
 Luther posted his theses on the door at Witten- 
 
 25 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 berg the " Thirty Years' War " began. Start- 
 ing as a struggle between Protestant and Cath- 
 olic princes in Germany, it involved almost all 
 the states of the continent, and raged until it 
 had wrought well-nigh universal wretchedness. 
 Trades and industries perished. Its remorseless 
 flames swept not only the palaces of the nobles 
 in the cities but the hovels of the peasants also 
 in remote places. 
 
 The little villages of the Ban-de-la-Roche were 
 overrun by hostile bands of soldiers, who made 
 it impossible for the terrorized people to culti- 
 vate their fields even in their poor way. They 
 were in constant fear of attack and pillage. Often 
 they were compelled to seek the depths of the 
 forests for safety, living upon such herbs as they 
 could find. 
 
 Previous to these disastrous times a Protestant 
 church and a manse had been built at Waldbach. 
 The manse was so rude that the incumbent of 
 it invariably called it " the rat hole." It does 
 not appear that his unattractive designation 
 caused him to do anything to improve it. He 
 remained at Waldbach during a part of the 
 Thirty Years' War, and certain records which 
 he left still exist. 
 
 In 1647 tne Ban found itself a second time 
 26 
 
PARISHES IN MOUNTAINS OF VOSGES 
 
 well-nigh depopulated, all the villages together 
 numbering no more than ninety people, and when 
 the war ended in 1648 the sufferings of the en- 
 tire generation had been so great and the misery 
 so extreme that the five villages of the Ban 
 together had but forty-three survivors. 
 
 A half century passed, and the country again 
 recovered itself, until the district comprised nearly 
 one hundred families ; but all this time it had been 
 a hard battle for sheer existence. In the short 
 summer season the people gathered barely enough 
 food to sustain their impoverished life through 
 the long winter, only to renew the struggle when 
 the snows melted. With no trades and without 
 industries other than the rudest agriculture, and 
 with no intelligent cultivation of the soil for this, 
 their roads mere by-paths, their streams without 
 bridges, their food scanty and coarse, what could 
 be looked for but hopeless and hapless lives? 
 
 It would be incorrect indeed to leave the im- 
 pression that nothing had been done to amelio- 
 rate their sad condition. The churches at Fouday 
 and Waldbach from time to time since 1626 had 
 received as many as twelve different pastors, min- 
 istering with long interruptions; but war and 
 pestilence had destroyed most of their work. 
 Some of them, moreover, had been poor shep- 
 
 27 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 herds who had left no evidences of usefulness. 
 The forms of religion had not been entirely lost 
 but had been wholly neglected, and life was such 
 a constant wrestle with poverty that nothing 
 better than the conditions described could have 
 been expected. 
 
 To the poor people with such an inheritance 
 of hard history and poor life, came in 1750 the 
 forerunner of Oberlin, Pastor Jean Georges 
 Stuber. He was twenty-eight years of age, a 
 graduate of the University of Strasburg, with 
 superior literary and scientific culture, and thor- 
 oughly consecrated to his missionary work. He 
 soon saw that nothing permanent could be hoped 
 for in attempting to evangelize the existing igno- 
 rance. Missionaries had preached to the people 
 and failed. Stuber realized that righteousness 
 needs knowledge and that ignorance is both un- 
 certain and superstitious. He saw as none had 
 before him, that there must be coworking of 
 religion and education, the one for energy, the 
 other for wisdom and permanence. His first 
 work, therefore, was to establish schools, one in 
 each little village. These were primitive enough, 
 but they were beginnings. He made himself re- 
 sponsible for expenses, and procured for the pupils 
 books and paper and ink, visiting Strasburg from 
 
 28 
 
PARISHES IN MOUNTAINS OF VOSGES 
 
 time to time to solicit aid, and to interest the 
 benevolent in this new form of missionary serv- 
 ice. He was one of those, of whom there are 
 few, who are blessed with the valuable gift of 
 promoting charity in others. Let us be grate- 
 ful for a succession of such philanthropic souls. 
 The world is less selfish because of them. Both 
 his tact and the courage in his solicitation come 
 down to us in an illustration. The provost 
 of the Ban-de-la-Roche resided in Strasburg. 
 Stuber asked of him lumber enough to build a 
 schoolhouse. This high personage, in rather a 
 disheartening way, declined to contribute; but 
 Stuber, by no means disconcerted by his positive 
 refusal, said, " I 'trust your Excellency will not 
 forbid me to call upon some charitably disposed 
 people and solicit aid for such a needful work." 
 "Not at all, not at all; call upon whom you 
 please." " Well," replied Stuber, with his pleas- 
 antest smile, " as your Excellency is well known 
 for his charity and good deeds, I will begin 
 here," holding out his hat. The nerve and the 
 manner of it pleased the provost and ended in 
 his contributing the whole amount of lumber for 
 the school and in making an express condition 
 that Stuber should dine with him every time he 
 visited Strasburg. 
 
 29 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Stuber, who had rare gifts in music, intro- 
 duced in his little schools musical instruction. 
 For a generation there had been no singing; no 
 one knew how to sing correctly. There was not 
 a Bible or a Testament in the entire district. 
 He secured copies of these, and edited a cate- 
 chism, to bring out the more vital Christian 
 teachings. He repaired the church building at 
 Waldbach and began a public library with a 
 hundred volumes. 
 
 Thus for ten years in two pastorates, from 
 1750 to 1754, and again from 1760 to 1767, 
 Stuber grappled with the difficulties of this neg- 
 lected field, attacking the ignorance and the 
 poverty of the people in these ways, but not 
 without encountering much opposition. Fixed 
 in their habits, most of the people did not know 
 enough to wish for improvement and few had 
 any desire to be made better. 
 
 Ten years were too few to overcome the in- 
 ertia of a long-degraded heredity and to change 
 the habits of feeling, thought, and action which 
 had been handed down for many generations. 
 Doubtless it often seemed a long time to this 
 man who, single-handed and alone, was carrying 
 the heavy burden. His failing health, and the 
 more rapid decline of the health of his wife, at 
 
 30 
 
PARISHES IN MOUNTAINS OF VOSGES 
 
 last compelled him to leave this laborious service 
 without having made much impression. But he 
 had put too much of his life into this wretched 
 charge now to remit his interest when he left 
 it to assume a pastorate in Strasburg. He could 
 not endure the thought that the work which he 
 had begun might be lost or that it should fall 
 into unworthy hands. His problem was, " Can 
 any one be found willing to take up the task of 
 bringing redemption to these rude people and 
 to endure the hardness of life which this in- 
 volves ? " It was with this question that he had 
 gone to Oberlin, and it was with this history 
 of bitter life on the part of the people and of 
 his almost hopeless endeavor that Oberlin in the 
 strength of his early manhood had answered him, 
 saying, " I will go." 
 
Ill 
 
 EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND 
 PRACTISE 
 
Ill 
 
 EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND 
 PRACTISE 
 
 (1767-1771) 
 
 IN the little village which was to be his home 
 and from which he was to reach out to the 
 four other parishes in his charge, Oberlin 
 installed himself. We have seen how the work 
 was represented to him by Stuber. Now that 
 he acquainted himself with it, what did he find 
 and how did it appear to him? 
 
 Some have thought that his biographers under 
 the spell of his remarkable personality have un- 
 consciously darkened the history and conditions 
 of this forlorn field, as painters shade their pic- 
 tures in order that the principal figures may 
 better stand out from the background. It was 
 soon evident enough, however, that Stuber, in his 
 relation to Oberlin of the condition of things, did 
 not overstate the severe and difficult conditions. 
 The country was indeed in extremest poverty. 
 
 35 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 The people of the fief were compelled to do feudal 
 duty in severe forms. The provosts and their 
 subalterns were so exacting in their demands that 
 life was a practical slavery. One form of the serv- 
 ice required was to bring coal to the furnaces at 
 Waldbach, and to carry over the rugged moun- 
 tain ways the iron from the mines to the forges 
 at Rothau. The poverty of some was so extreme 
 that one presentable suit of clothes was made to 
 answer for different members of the family and 
 was worn alternately, and one pair of sabots had to 
 serve for all the household. Tax dues far beyond 
 their ability accumulated year by year. Oberlin 
 writes : " Money-gatherers are going about say- 
 ing, ' Pay up, pay up/ and it is difficult to save 
 them from the hands of the sheriff. Whoever 
 secures enough bread for a whole year is consid- 
 ered very rich." Again, he records in his journal 
 the joy of a poor widow upon receiving a cent 
 which he had feared to offer her lest he should 
 offend her, and further on adds, " Oh, I wish that 
 he who has not learned to save, to be content with 
 little, to limit himself to simple food and clothing, 
 to refuse all frivolous things, might learn and 
 know the life of our poor Ban-de-la-Roche. It 
 is difficult for those in comfort to understand what 
 extreme poverty means." 
 
 36 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 His diary, which is full, does not anywhere, 
 however, reveal any discouragement. He was 
 afflicted by the misery of the people, but he was 
 wont to get mental relief from the scenes of it 
 by turning to nature about him. The moun- 
 tains uplifted his spirit. He loved the fields and 
 meadows of the valleys with the streams cours- 
 ing through them. They helped him to postpone 
 for the time his thoughts of the surrounding 
 human sorrow. His botany paid him rich re- 
 wards for the investment of his past study. The 
 flora of the fields, varied and rich, greatly in- 
 terested him. Of one of his excursions as winter 
 approached he writes : " Nature was of mar- 
 velous beauty. The valleys and hills were 
 of a dazzling whiteness. The pine-trees were 
 covered with hoar frost. The frozen snow 
 reflected everywhere brilliantly the rays of the 
 
 sun." 
 
 Again he refers to the satisfaction which came 
 to him in this communion with nature " with 
 the hills lighted up by the sun, variegated by the 
 ever-changing shadows of the trees/' With all 
 his tendency to self-introspection there could be 
 nothing morbid in his mind, which thus delighted 
 in nature studies and in the glory which the 
 world puts on. 
 
 37 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Of the ancient parsonage into which he came 
 he writes : " I was living in an old house where 
 I endured continual embarrassments and losses 
 both by the rats and the rain, which went through 
 everything, but I would not think of a better 
 one until the schools are comfortably lodged/' 
 
 It did not take a long time for him to grasp 
 the situation before him. No temporary amelio- 
 ration would do; no patchwork upon existing 
 conditions. It was not worth while to put new 
 wine into the old bottles. The reformation must 
 be absolutely radical. Long-established evils to 
 which the people were born and which had been 
 strengthened and confirmed by generations of 
 ignorance called for entirely new environments 
 if there was to be any worthy life. But Oberlin 
 did not make the mistake, too common in our 
 day, that a mere change in material conditions 
 for the better, even if this could be effected, 
 would insure a permanent betterment of the 
 people. The foundation hope for better envi- 
 ronments that would stay must rest in the fact 
 that a better people would work them out and 
 maintain them. The necessary changes in 
 methods and manners of life must begin in the 
 character of the people or they would prove to 
 be unreal and temporary. Character alone would 
 
 38 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 remove the miseries which afflicted them. As this 
 should be understood and accepted their material 
 conditions would improve, and these in turn 
 would react and become great factors to facili- 
 tate the life impulse and the qualities which had 
 made for their improvement. This was Oberlin's 
 social theory, and a true one. To remove evil 
 is not enough. There must be a moral redemp- 
 tion and moral power for any permanent wel- 
 fare. Oberlin clearly saw that this meant cease- 
 less patience, and a courage which would hold 
 on through whatever disappointments and over 
 whatever oppositions and never falter. No short- 
 lived enthusiasms or temporary purposes were 
 worth consideration. There must be a faith that 
 would not surrender, and there must be full time 
 for faith's fruitage in the internal character of 
 the people. 
 
 Oberlin had gone to his people first of all as 
 a pastor, for which office he had particularly pre- 
 pared himself. The spiritual welfare of his flock 
 naturally was his supreme consideration, but he 
 saw at once how little mere preaching and evan- 
 gelizing could accomplish in this material and 
 moral desolation. True, his work was to save 
 souls. But he must do it by saving men and 
 women. More; this work of salvation must 
 
 39 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 largely be wrought out before souls became men 
 and women. This was quite a new missionary idea. 
 Aforetime, the missionary way was to preach the 
 truths of the Bible to grown-up people and to urge 
 their acceptance ; to gather churches, and to min- 
 ister to them. It came to Oberlin that taking the 
 gospel as the power of God unto salvation in the 
 ignorance about him was not nearly so simple 
 a matter as this. He saw clearly the connection 
 between physical misery and moral degradation. 
 He could not deal with those who were bearing 
 in themselves the penalties of the lack of knowl- 
 edge as if they were disembodied spirits. They 
 must be taught how to meet their physical desti- 
 tution and their mental destitution also. They 
 must be ministered to as those who have a life 
 to work out now, as well as an expectant life 
 in a world to come. His mission was not simply 
 to rescue here and there a vacant mind, nor to 
 " throw out the life-line " to shipwrecked souls, 
 but the kingdom of God is " as if a man should 
 cast seed upon the earth," and it should grow by 
 all kinds of help, " he knoweth not how," but not 
 without long watching and care and waiting. In 
 this way Oberlin broadened the missionary in- 
 terpretation of salvation with the beginning of 
 his ministry. 
 
 40 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 He would therefore place the first emphasis 
 upon schools. To multiply Christian schools 
 means to multiply Christian men and women; 
 and where these grow in numbers schools are 
 sure to develop in scope and quality, and 
 preachers and teachers will not fail to be made 
 ready for the growing kingdom. First, then, in 
 the order both of time and importance, there 
 must be schools; not only indispensable for the 
 present, but also the only guaranty of the future. 
 But how to get these was the question. Stuber 
 had built one little schoolhouse before Oberlin 
 came a single, poor, one-room affair for five 
 villages miles apart. This was but little better 
 than nothing at the first, and now was in a 
 ruinous state. 
 
 Oberlin began with a scheme of education 
 which staggered the faith of his friends. It 
 asked, they thought; for too much to expect 
 realization. There must be teachers thoroughly 
 competent and earnest. For this the people them- 
 selves could do absolutely nothing, even if they 
 could have appreciated such a use of funds when 
 they were in great material destitution. Any 
 attempt to add to their burdens was sure to be 
 resisted, nor could they understand why schools 
 should be regarded as a first necessity. As 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Oberlin's entire salary was only about $200 a 
 year, on which he was to live, it was evident that 
 he could not erect many schoolhouses from his 
 personal treasury. Nevertheless he decided 
 to use his own words " it must be done," and 
 he proceeded to the doing without delay. He 
 purchased the ground and drew the plans of a 
 sufficiently commodious schoolhouse. Faith and 
 works joined hands. He prayed to God and he 
 prayed to men. Stuber was in Strasburg among 
 influential friends, and Oberlin was not without 
 friends there, and together they did not fail to 
 make their wants known. A loan of sixteen 
 hundred francs about $320 was obtained. 
 Oberlin made himself personally responsible for 
 it, relying upon the assurance of two thousand 
 francs in the future $400 promised by a 
 benevolent lady in Strasburg. 
 
 So far well, but this was not very far. His 
 disturbed parishioners arose with an emphatic 
 " No ! " They opposed the entire scheme. They 
 said, " Before the building is completed we shall 
 be taxed for it, and we are taxed to death now. 
 We will not submit to another tax." 
 
 " You shall not be taxed for it," said Oberlin. 
 
 " But we will have to keep it in repair," they 
 replied, " and we don't want it and we will not 
 
 42 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 have it. We know what it means. It means 
 burdens imposed upon us." 
 
 The unruly spirits in the Ban were exceed- 
 ingly active, and there are always unruly spirits 
 everywhere if they can get half a chance to make 
 trouble. Now they had their opportunity with 
 Oberlin and they used it. They had already 
 begun to criticize his preaching. He was too 
 direct. He was too much in earnest. He was 
 too radical. He was forever suggesting changes, 
 and they protested against his innovations. The 
 more headstrong decided to attack him person- 
 ally. " Our pastor is too fiery," they said; " we 
 will cool him off. We will put him under the 
 spout when he passes by." Oberlin heard of the 
 threat and lost no time in going to the head- 
 quarters of the opposers. " Why, friends, if you 
 expect to wet me you do not know my horse. 
 But if you really wish to do it, to make the thing 
 easier for you I will leave my horse at home, 
 and go on foot after this to give you a chance." 
 After this interview they hesitated, and decided 
 to rest with the threat. 
 
 At another time Oberlin received information 
 that certain ones opposed to his ideas had a plan 
 to waylay him and inflict personal castigation. 
 This would intimidate him and prevent his future 
 
 43 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 interferences. Learning where the malcontents 
 had come together, he immediately appeared to 
 them. " Here I am, my friends, without fear. 
 I am acquainted with your design and that you 
 propose to chastise me. Very well, if I am cul- 
 pable punish me for it. It is better that I should 
 deliver myself into your hands than that you 
 should be guilty of an ambuscade to do this." 
 As in other cases, this ended by the peasants in 
 sheer shame yielding their intention. 
 
 Still, the determined and almost violent oppo- 
 sition to the proposed schoolhouse could not 
 be overcome. It assumed such proportion that 
 Oberlin and Stuber, helping him from Strasburg, 
 bound themselves by a written contract that " we 
 will build a schoolhouse and it shall not cost 
 the inhabitants anything, either in grain or in 
 labor." This agreement brought a final though 
 not a cheerful consent. 
 
 " It was inexpressible joy to me," wrote Ober- 
 lin, " when I saw from week to week the struc- 
 ture going up." When it was finished, a debt 
 of one thousand francs equal to his entire 
 year's salary rested on Oberlin, which it took 
 him several years with his strictest economy to 
 pay. 
 
 This building was no sooner completed than 
 44 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 he immediately began another at Bellefosse, a 
 few miles away. Here there was less opposi- 
 tion, as he was now gradually gaining the con- 
 fidence of the people. The construction of this 
 building occupied a year and a half, and left 
 an additional personal debt of another thousand 
 francs on Oberlin, which, like the former one, 
 was paid at length by his continuous savings. 
 In a few years the inhabitants of the other 
 villages came forward voluntarily and took the 
 cost and care upon themselves of building 
 their own schoolhouses, until each village had 
 its own. 
 
 These secured, Oberlin bent his energies to 
 find well-qualified teachers who would carry out 
 his ideas of an education, fitted for the special 
 and peculiar experience of the class of people 
 under his charge. He well understood that the 
 teacher makes the school, but teachers could not 
 be constructed like schoolhouses. True teachers, 
 like poets, are born, not made. While he was 
 busy in securing them and he did secure them 
 he was also planning and drawing up his 
 courses of instruction. Some idea of the start- 
 ing-point of ignorance is seen in the quota- 
 tion, " The pupil must learn to count as far as 
 a thousand, and add and subtract as far as a 
 
 45 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 hundred." The plan of instruction which he 
 wrote out and prescribed embraced a number of 
 years. It began with the infant school, proceeded 
 through primary, grammar, and advanced grades, 
 with each grade subdivided and classified accord- 
 ing to the pupils' attainments. 
 
 His " infant schools " were probably the first 
 ever established, and in many of his ideas and 
 methods in his instruction of industrial train- 
 ing, both manual and agricultural, he anticipated 
 Pestalozzi by forty years, and Froebel by full 
 seventy years in many of his educational theo- 
 ries. It has been said that Froebel's best thought 
 was not in relation to the kindergarten, but in 
 relation to the education of adults, to make the 
 whole community a unit of intellectual and moral 
 cooperation. Oberlin not only announced this 
 theory, but he was putting it into practical effect, 
 amid untold oppositions, many years before Froe- 
 bel was born. His infant schools practised 
 modern kindergarten methods. Observation and 
 experience convinced him that even from the 
 cradle children are capable of being taught to 
 distinguish between right and wrong and of 
 being trained to habits of subordination and 
 industry; and in conjunction with his wife he 
 secured " conductrices " for each hamlet, en- 
 
 46 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 gaged schoolrooms for them, and became per- 
 sonally responsible for their salaries. 
 
 Instruction in these schools was mingled with 
 amusement, and while enough discipline was in- 
 troduced to instil habits of obedience and atten- 
 tion, a degree of liberty was allowed which left 
 the infant mind the freedom of individuality. 
 During school hours the children were formed 
 m great circles. Two women were employed, 
 one to direct the handicraft, and the other to 
 entertain and instruct. The children of two and 
 three years only were to sit quietly by at inter- 
 vals, while those of four or six years were taught 
 to knit and spin and sew; and when they were 
 beginning to be weary, they were shown colored 
 pictures relating to Scriptural subjects or natural 
 history and were to recite after the teacher the 
 explanations which she gave. In addition, she 
 taught them to sing songs and hymns and gave 
 them bits of useful information in children's 
 stories. In this way their employments were 
 " varied as much as possible," " care being taken 
 to keep them constantly alert, occupied, and never 
 permitting them to speak a word of patois." 
 When they arrived at the proper age, the chil- 
 dren were ready for the primary grades in the 
 public school. 
 
 47 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Here again the originality of Oberlin is mani- 
 fest. He introduced in these grades, and indeed 
 in all grades, a nicely adjusted scheme of " self- 
 government." Monitors were to be chosen by 
 the pupils from among themselves to observe 
 violations of good manners, disobedience, idle- 
 ness, or any departures from good conduct. 
 These monitors were to serve for given periods 
 of time, when there would be new elections. The 
 pupils also were to choose juries and judges, 
 before whom all cases of discipline were to be 
 brought for judgment. This was more than a 
 century ago, when in schools the accepted theory 
 of discipline meant authority of command and 
 the penalty of the rod. 
 
 In the primary grades the pupils were to learn 
 to " spell without a book, to pronounce correctly, 
 and the first ideas of morality and religion." 
 They were to advance to arithmetic " by easy 
 lessons in addition, multiplication, subtraction., 
 and division, upon the blackboard." Through 
 intermediate studies and into what may be called 
 the grammar grade were exercises " in reading 
 and writing, in geography with maps, the study of 
 different peoples, their customs, governments, and 
 religions, arithmetic, grammar, and vocal music." 
 In the higher grades were "natural history, 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 botany, familiarity with plants, book-keeping, his- 
 tory, astronomy, physics, translations from Ger- 
 man into French, the rules of health, first lessons 
 in geometry, pen-making, drawing, and use of 
 colors." Oberlin knew very well that the sciences 
 could not be taught in his schools beyond the 
 first elements, but he was confident that he could 
 aid the habit of observation and study in the 
 science of common things. In his instructions 
 to the teachers the pupils were to learn all that 
 could be taught them " relating to the seasons and 
 the weather, to the productions of the earth, to 
 animals, to men and their food, their clothing and 
 their houses." Concerning property, they were 
 " to learn about inheritances, loans, debts, interest, 
 processes of law, magistrates, and the common- 
 wealth." Our nature studies and civil govern- 
 ment studies as they are now taught were pretty 
 well covered in Oberlin's program. The princi- 
 ples of agriculture were also in his curriculum. 
 Added to this, which we should scarcely expect to 
 find in such conditions, was instruction in esthetics. 
 Oberlin purposed to interest these young minds in 
 what is beautiful. They were " to draw from na- 
 ture and to color their drawings." They were to 
 be taught " to observe the forms and colors of 
 nature and to draw rocks, trees, flowers, and 
 4 - 49 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 animals from the things themselves." He fur- 
 nished from his own purse paper, colors, and pen- 
 cils for this. From his printed notes for teachers 
 I quote : " Nearly all pupils wish to paint with 
 only brilliant colors. Nevertheless, there are few 
 brilliant colors in nature. Rocks, the trunks of 
 trees, houses, earth, furniture, utensils, have not 
 brilliant colors. If there are some students wise 
 enough to take nature for their model and use 
 quiet colors, I beg gentlemen preceptors to send 
 me their books of drawing that I may examine 
 them." Thus he carefully superintended every- 
 thing. His schedule was not simply a program; 
 it was to be carried out. He watched and di- 
 rected it. His personal attention to details is 
 observable in every undertaking, and he placed 
 the greatest importance upon these in educa- 
 tion. With him there was no confidence in gen- 
 eral oversight which was careless of particular 
 duties. Upon the proper knowledge and ad- 
 justment of details general principles work, and 
 he was willing to give time and thought to 
 the things that came nearest to his people. The 
 schedule for each day's work for each school 
 was the same in each village. It is given on the 
 opposite page, and, as will be seen, compares 
 favorably with modern schools. 
 
 5 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 1 1! 
 
 < fe 
 
 tion of 
 pter 
 
 Arit 
 
 ictatio 
 a cha 
 of Ge 
 words 
 
 
 SU 
 
 .^o 
 
 . 
 
 S o^ 
 
 - 1 - 1 
 
 o 
 
 * I 
 
 j 
 
 bo 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 The children of ten or twelve years of age 
 were required to copy and commit to memory 
 essays upon agriculture and the planting and 
 care of trees. Every child of a certain age was 
 required to plant two trees, and thereafter care 
 for them, the first-fruits of which were presented 
 to the pastor. 
 
 Every Sunday the children of each village in 
 rotation were assembled at the church of the 
 village to sing the hymns which they had learned 
 to recite at the schools, and to receive the ex- 
 hortations of their common father. 
 
 As the extraordinary change which these 
 efforts produced became known, it had the effect 
 of putting larger means at Oberlin's disposal. 
 His Strasburg friends increased their subscrip- 
 tions, and he was enabled to have a number of 
 useful books printed especially for his parish- 
 ioners. He procured an electrical machine and 
 other philosophical apparatus and certain prizes, 
 both to award to pupils and to teachers. He also 
 began a circulating library, each village retain- 
 ing books for a time and passing them from 
 house to house. Among the productions pre- 
 pared by him was a set of school-books for the 
 exclusive use of the Ban-de-la-Roche and adapted 
 to his own program of education. He also pre- 
 52 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 pared and published an almanac, cleared from 
 the usual symbols of superstition and other mat- 
 ter to which he took exception, with spaces for 
 a daily diary of events. Introducing this al- 
 manac, he says : " Fathers and mothers of fami- 
 lies are often puzzled to find suitable baptismal 
 names to distinguish their children from others 
 who have the same family names. Henceforth, 
 if they will consult this new almanac, they will 
 find a long list of pretty names, and the sig- 
 nification of them when they are of foreign 
 derivation/' 
 
 In this way passed the first four years at 
 Waldbach. At this date the fief, which had been 
 under Catholic rule, passed into the hands of a 
 Protestant lord, and Oberlin, writing to his friend, 
 Zeigenhagen, at the time, thus reported it to 
 him: 
 
 Sunday, the 7th of April, I gave to Mr. J. J. Tisler, 
 who was going to Rothau, a letter for the pastor 
 Schweighaeuser, requesting him to present himself to 
 the new lord Baron de Dietrich at Strasburg. When 
 Mr. Tisler arrived, he found the people waiting for 
 Mr. Buerle, who wanted to buy Ban- de-la-Roche. The 
 sergeant, who is son-in-law of the solicitor, asked 
 Tisler, " What news ? " "A new lord," Tisler replied. 
 :< Yes," said the sergeant, " we are waiting for him, 
 Mr. Buerle." " It is riot Mr. Buerle," replied Tisler, 
 
 53 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 " but Baron de Dietrich, as pastor Oberlin has assured 
 us." Thereupon the sergeant accused Tisler of lying : 
 " He knew better." " That is possible," said Tisler, 
 " but I know that our pastor prayed for the old lord and 
 for the new lord, and urged the citizens to have confi- 
 dence in God," adding that I had named Baron de Diet- 
 rich as our future master. Upon hearing that their 
 faces changed color, and they said, " Now, we believe 
 it," and some of the Catholic women wrung their hands 
 and cried, " The Lord help us," and others covered 
 their heads, exclaiming, " Oh, mein Gott, a Huguenot 
 lord ! " All Rothau sent their remembrances to me. 
 " Do not fail to tell him that I send my cordial re- 
 gards," was repeated on every side. They well knew 
 what persecutions they had upon their consciences, and 
 how the Ban-de-la-Roche thus passed out of the hands 
 of a Catholic lord of fief; but the fears of the Catho- 
 lics were not justified by any reprisals. 
 
 The new lord was received with great joy when 
 he arrived at Waldbach in July 1771, and shouts 
 of, " Long live the new lord! " were heard every- 
 where. Oberlin, followed by his flock, went out 
 to meet him, and young girls sang songs of wel- 
 come. This was greatly appreciated, and from 
 that time the baron interested himself in Ober- 
 lin and his work. Many wrongs and tyrannies 
 imposed by the former lords were corrected, 
 the taxes were reduced, and the feudal tithes 
 lessened. Baron de Dietrich immediately in- 
 
 54 
 
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND PRACTISE 
 
 creased Oberlin's salary by two hundred francs 
 a year, and in many respects the inhabitants 
 of the fief had reason for new courage. It 
 had been a trying but fruitful four years for 
 Oberlin. 
 
 55 
 
IV 
 MAKING A HOME 
 
IV 
 
 MAKING A HOME 
 (1768) 
 
 PREVIOUS to his departure to his moun- 
 tain parish, Oberlin's mother, mindful of 
 his welfare, advised him to take a wife 
 with him to the parsonage. He had no such 
 purpose for himself, but he was willing to be 
 counseled in a matter quite beyond his contem- 
 plated plans, and consented to the accepted theory 
 that " it is not good that the man should be alone/' 
 and that with a good wife one's usefulness would 
 be promoted. He received the proposition as a 
 general truth, but confessed that he had no 
 special interest in its particular application. As 
 there was no predilection on his part, his mother, 
 in the usual conventional method of the Euro- 
 pean countries, became the natural go-between 
 in the matter which so intimately concerned his 
 entire future. Naturally, she thought that a wife 
 who could bring a wholesome portion of earthly 
 
 59 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 goods with her would not, if other things were 
 equal, be less valuable in the anticipated heavenly 
 relation. The fact that her son appeared to have 
 so little personal interest in the matter was a 
 difficulty which she was confident might be over- 
 come and adjusted. The daughter of a wealthy 
 widow was suggested, and, after conference, the 
 two mothers put their heads together to bring 
 about the match. The young man in the case 
 was informed that the young lady did not re- 
 gard the possibility ungraciously, and he was 
 encouraged to cultivate friendliness. His pas- 
 sivity and docility in the proceedings did not 
 arise wholly from indifference, but in part from 
 his theory and practise from early youth to sub- 
 mit every judgment to God and to rely upon him 
 for some especially providential indication of his 
 will; a practise which easily may savor of pre- 
 sumption, as at times it did in future cases with 
 Oberlin. Every question with him was a sub- 
 ject for prayer, and this one as yet had never 
 come under his prayerful consideration. Ober- 
 lin had never visited the home of the intended 
 lady and appears not even to have known her 
 by sight. On this occasion he prayed that God 
 would be pleased to reveal his will to him, and to 
 direct him in his judgment whether the proposed 
 
 60 
 
MAKING A HOME 
 
 marriage would be for his happiness and useful- 
 ness or not by the manner in which he should 
 be received. He did not realize the presumption 
 in that he himself should decide in advance what 
 the sign of divine approbation was to be. He 
 resolved that if the mother should herself make 
 the proposition he would regard it as a sign of 
 the divine will that he was to go ahead; but 
 if she did not, he should consider it his duty to 
 draw off without mentioning the subject. A day 
 was appointed for the visit, and the mother of 
 the young lady in question, who had been in- 
 formed of his coming, was waiting to receive 
 him. Oberlin reached the widow's door in due 
 season and rang the bell. He was received 
 courteously, and the young lady soon came in and 
 was introduced. A general conversation began 
 in the customary terms, and when all the ordi- 
 nary commonplaces seemed to have been ex- 
 hausted, the situation became embarrassing. 
 Oberlin waited for the providential indication 
 which he had determined upon, but there was 
 no sign. In dead silence the parties looked at 
 one another, each waiting for the other to in- 
 timate in some way the purpose of the inter- 
 view. As the increasing embarrassment became 
 somewhat serious Oberlin made his decision, and 
 
 61 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 with the customary courtesies withdrew, leaving 
 mother and daughter without explanation, as if 
 he had simply dropped in to make a pleasant call. 
 This was the conclusion. 
 
 Oberlin was doubtless right in his belief that 
 faith had its place in questions of this kind as 
 in all questions, but in this case faith ended with 
 sight. Probably any youth in search of a wife 
 would naturally conclude that the divine will was 
 in the negative when he found that the young 
 lady did not particularly attract him. 
 
 It may be said that Oberlin's mother was " cast 
 down, but not destroyed." She knew well that 
 she had a good son who would make a good 
 husband, provided he could once be secured in 
 the matrimonial net. Her next tentative began 
 with an amiable daughter of a former tutor of 
 Oberlin. The tutor knew and highly appreciated 
 Oberlin's character and work, and in this case 
 the young man was attracted to the young lady. 
 The marriage contract was drawn up. Mean- 
 while, however, a suitor who was wealthy pre- 
 sented himself with such urgency and success that 
 the temporary eclipse of Oberlin followed, and 
 the young lady, after many hesitations, withdrew 
 from her engagement with him. After a few 
 weeks she repentingly felt that she had done this 
 
 62 
 
MAKING A HOME 
 
 unwisely, and a note was written by her father 
 to Oberlin expressing their regret for her mis- 
 take and intimating his desire that the former 
 relations should be renewed. On the receipt of 
 the note Oberlin at once proceeded to the resi- 
 dence, and returned the note, saying: " My dear 
 sir, I am accustomed to follow the intimations 
 of providence, and from what has recently oc- 
 curred I am assured that a union with your 
 daughter would promote neither her happiness 
 nor mine. Let us therefore forget what is past, 
 and let me, as of old, share your affection as 
 though no overtures had been made/' 
 
 This second experience ended in a manner 
 more creditable than the first, but not less than 
 the first indicates Oberlin's characteristic of faith 
 and decisiveness. 
 
 Here ended the mother's endeavors to secure 
 for her son a fitting companion. The question 
 was settled, but Oberlin was not. His mother, 
 however, could not consent to her son's depar- 
 ture alone. She accompanied him to Waldbach, 
 settled him, unwived, and left his younger sister 
 Sophia in charge of his new home. Busy with 
 the beginnings of his self-denying life among his 
 poor people, he had neither time nor inclination 
 to turn his thoughts to any further experiments 
 
 63' 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 looking to matrimony. Sister Sophia was all that 
 his heart could wish in making a home a sacred 
 refuge from his cares. 
 
 Nevertheless, .in that remote and lonely place 
 it was to be expected that this sister Sophia 
 would have many lonely hours, accustomed as 
 she was to Strasburg life; and when a year had 
 been spent in this way she induced her intimate 
 friend, Mile. Madeline Witter, after a somewhat 
 serious illness, to visit her and try the bracing 
 mountain air for recuperation ; this rather against 
 the preferences of Oberlin. Mile. Witter, who 
 was related to Oberlin on her mother's side, was 
 the daughter of a former professor of the Univer- 
 sity of Strasburg, but had lost both of her parents 
 at an early age. She was now a well-educated 
 city girl, with far more expensive habits than 
 were approved by Oberlin, of great charm of 
 manner and liveliness of disposition. 
 
 Oberlin's severe views of life and the nature 
 of his work were such that the gaiety of the 
 visit was not altogether agreeable to him, and 
 he lost no occasion to express in a kindly way 
 his little disagreements with her apparently less 
 serious attitudes of thought and feeling. Mile. 
 Witter met his ironies with happy rejoinders; 
 quick of wit, she was not second to him in 
 
MAKING A HOME 
 
 repartee, and while neither of them thought it, 
 they were coming to appreciate and enjoy each 
 other in their perfect independence of opinions 
 and ability to defend them. Then came an indi- 
 cation to Oberlin (shall we call it providential?) 
 such as he had not distinctly prayed for, that 
 this gay, witty, charming young woman would 
 be a delightful companion, a real comrade in life. 
 As soon as he realized this he determined to 
 resist the growing intimacy, giving to himself 
 as reasons her joyous temperament, her over- 
 elegant toilet, and her worldly habits. Nor was 
 he unmindful of the declaration he had often 
 heard her make, that she " would never marry 
 a clergyman." The visit continued for some 
 weeks, every day of them weaving the toils 
 closer about them both. Oberlin, in his jour- 
 nal, confesses the conquest that had been made 
 and recorded "two sleepless nights." 
 
 While providence continued the intimations in 
 this unsolicited way, the time came when the 
 young lady's immediate departure was at hand. 
 Repeatedly seeking divine guidance, the young 
 pastor looked for signs to indicate God's will. 
 It is recorded that he solemnly declared to God 
 that if he would give him a sign, he would act 
 accordingly. The only sign which came was " an 
 5 6 5 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 inner voice that seemed to repeat, ' Take her for 
 your wife.' ' He replied to himself, " But it is 
 impossible; our dispositions and our tastes are 
 so dissimilar," and the inner voice reiterated, 
 " Take her for your wife." That the wish was 
 father to the voice is clear enough. The voice 
 was as evidently a real one. It was the voice 
 of his own heart, though Oberlin did not then 
 so interpret it. 
 
 He decided at last that this indeed was the 
 intimation of providence, and then he lost no 
 time in obeying the divine will. It was a glad 
 obedience. He sought the lady under the shade 
 of a tree which still stands in the garden, and 
 how his declaration has come down to us in 
 words I know not, but his original biographer 
 and friend, who was assisted by Oberlin' s daugh- 
 ter in handing down the romance, writes that 
 Oberlin said : " You are about to leave us, my 
 dear friend, but I have had an intimation that 
 you are destined by divine will to be the partner 
 of my life. If you will resolve upon this step, 
 so important to us both, I expect you will give 
 me your candid opinion about it before your 
 departure." 
 
 Let us hope that his biographer and friend did 
 not get correctly all that was said on this occa- 
 
 66 
 

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MAKING A HOME 
 
 sion, even if the young missionary may have 
 been enabled to interweave these words into 
 his declaration. We know that Oberlin was 
 accustomed to enter in his diary his daily 
 thoughts, and it is quite possible that in the cool 
 of the evening, with his pen in hand, in the 
 mental reaction after such an experience, he 
 thought that he made these identical remarks. 
 At all events we may be sure that he asked this 
 sweet girl, who had abundant humor and a sense 
 of the ridiculous, to share his life in such a way 
 that she did not laugh at its putting, and with- 
 out concealing from her that a life of sacrifice, 
 solitude, and poverty went with it. The young 
 woman did not need time to find out what might 
 be the providential intimations for herself. Her 
 heart was already in Oberlin's ownership; she 
 arose, placed one hand before her eyes, and with- 
 out a word spoken held out the other toward 
 him. He clasped it in his own, and there is 
 no record beyond this. 
 
 Oberlin never doubted after that that the in- 
 timation came from heaven; and assuredly it 
 did. Their marriage followed soon, July 6, 1768, 
 and Sophia and not Madeline was the one who 
 returned to live at Strasburg. This happy matri- 
 mony was not in accord with the conventional 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 mode formally arranged by parents, but it was 
 a true love marriage. In Oberlin's records we 
 see what an invaluable assistant she became to 
 her husband in his indefatigable labors, temper- 
 ing his zeal with her prudence and forwarding 
 his plans by her wise cooperation. The qualities 
 which she possessed he needed, and they made 
 her influence of the greatest value. She well 
 fulfilled her part in the endeavors for the better- 
 ment of these poor people, identifying herself 
 with all that concerned her husband's vocation, 
 cheerfully meeting his every consecration to the 
 work of God with an equal one of her own. 
 When the infant schools were started, she set 
 the example for others in teaching. When the 
 women of the parish were unwilling to learn to 
 spin cotton in order to help the household earn- 
 ings, which practise Oberlin introduced, his wife 
 took the new industry in hand and led them on 
 to the profits of it. 
 
 A quotation from a letter of Oberlin's well 
 illustrates her spirit. A school had been opened 
 at Dessau in Germany which had greatly inter- 
 ested Oberlin. He considered it in its methods the 
 model school of Germany. One of the profes- 
 sors there received a letter from Oberlin which 
 said : " How I would like to spend weeks near 
 
 68 
 
MAKING A HOME 
 
 you, to see and learn everything and 1 return to 
 the Ban-de-la-Roche to make this place in the 
 mountains worthier by your knowledge! While 
 reading your book with my wife we were saying, 
 ' Why do we not have some of the money which 
 is so useless in some hands ? ' We looked around 
 to see if we could discover anything convertible 
 into money. Suddenly my wife, beaming with 
 joy, brought me a pair of earrings, asking to 
 have them sent to aid your philanthropic insti- 
 tution. They cost her before marriage thirty 
 florins. You can imagine how pleased I was. 
 If the publication of my good little wife's name 
 can influence others to follow her example, we 
 cheerfully consent to it. Perhaps it may induce 
 some other people to make researches in their 
 jewel boxes." Oberlin's life was both richer and 
 stronger for this happy union, and his work 
 from its beginning to its close bears the impress 
 of her loving and beautiful character. 
 
V 
 A ROAD TO CIVILIZATION 
 
V 
 
 A ROAD TO CIVILIZATION 
 (1771-1773) 
 
 THE schools had been organized and sup- 
 plied with teachers; the next step in 
 civilization was to connect the almost 
 inaccessible villages with the movements of life 
 in the outside world. The people had been so 
 long in their wretched condition that they were 
 quite content to remain in it without disturbance. 
 They never had made roads, and had no wish 
 to begin now. It was more difficult to enlist the 
 sympathy of generous givers in Strasburg, and 
 others outside of the mountain districts, for mate- 
 rial improvement than it was to secure help to 
 relieve wants which were mental and spiritual. 
 Oberlin could scarcely expect to appeal to philan- 
 thropists for aid to blast rocks and to build 
 bridges. Nevertheless, without roads the people 
 must continue in extreme poverty. There would 
 be no market for their produce, even if they 
 
 73 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 should undertake to raise it. Nor was there any 
 encouragement for them to introduce improve- 
 ments in agriculture. During the greater por- 
 tion of the year the traveled ways which they 
 called roads could not be used on account of 
 landslides and mountain torrents. 
 
 First of all, the road to Rothau, the highway 
 to Strasburg, needed to be made safe for con- 
 stant communication. It was now little more 
 than a by-path, and the river Bruche, which was 
 a torrent when snows melted and the streams 
 were swollen, at such times could not be crossed. 
 A safe road for all seasons meant that a solid 
 wall of stone for nearly a mile and a half along 
 the Bruche should be constructed with a per- 
 manent bridge across it at the foot of the hill. 
 
 When Oberlin made known his plan to the 
 people, there were no words in their vocabulary 
 to even partially express their amazement. If 
 he had suggested a step-ladder to the moon, they 
 would not have been more astonished. What- 
 ever deprecatory adjectives were in their posses- 
 sion were freely used in their characterization 
 of such an impossible scheme. The preacher was 
 altogether out of his sphere. They positively re- 
 fused to sustain him. His vocation was preach- 
 ing. Why should he come to them with exhor- 
 
 74 
 
A ROAD TO CIVILIZATION 
 
 tations for roads and masonry? Without regard 
 for his feelings or judgment they said: "No; 
 we will not have it. Our pastor may as well 
 understand this now as ever ! " This much and 
 more was the answer to Oberlin's plan for good 
 roads. 
 
 Ignorant people are never more obstinate in 
 ignorance than when any attempt is made to 
 improve upon practises which have gained the 
 adherence of generations and which they have 
 inherited. It would have been an appropriate 
 time for a less determined man to have tendered 
 his resignation. The irresistible force had evi- 
 dently run against an immovable object. Ober- 
 lin did not propose to run away from difficulties. 
 This was one thing that he did not know how 
 to do. He knew that he was needed in Ban- 
 de-la-Roche, whether he was wanted or not. 
 He was there to stay. He was there to accom- 
 plish. The parishes could not starve him out, 
 for he knew how to starve. 
 
 " The road must be made," he said. " It would 
 be useless even if it were made," they replied, 
 " for we could not get across the stream when 
 it is full any better than now." He replied, 
 '' We will use the rocks which we blast in mak- 
 ing the road for abutments and throw a bridge 
 
 75 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 across/' Their lack of faith in roads was mar- 
 velous, but the proposition to bridge their 
 mountain streams utterly confounded them. It 
 confirmed them in the conclusion that their pas- 
 tor was an unsafe man to follow. Such a de- 
 parture from the old paths evidently showed 
 them not only the danger of theological studies, 
 but a capacity also for speculative views that 
 would halt at nothing. If their preacher was 
 to persist in these new notions, he must do it 
 alone. 
 
 Stuber had characterized them as " an iron- 
 headed people," and Oberlin felt that they were. 
 All the more they needed him, and though their 
 conduct was disquieting, it had not the least 
 effect upon his purpose. After the matter had 
 been discussed and sufficiently considered, and 
 Oberlin had preached on the Lord's Day with his 
 usual earnestness from the text, " There remain- 
 eth therefore a rest to the people of God," the 
 people with' unspeakable astonishment saw their 
 pastor, bright and early Monday morning, with 
 a pick on his shoulder, accompanied by three or 
 four who were loyal to him, passing through the 
 village to begin the road-making. Their wonder 
 grew when they saw him at work, picking and 
 digging and shoveling away stones that he could 
 
 ' 
 
A ROAD TO CIVILIZATION 
 
 not lift with his hands. There was manhood 
 enough among his people to assert itself after 
 such an appeal as this. It was an illustration 
 of applied Christianity altogether new to them, 
 and it was immediately followed by a great 
 revival of practical religion in the village. The 
 next day a score were working with him, the 
 next day following fifty, until by the time they 
 had reached the stream there were no doubters; 
 all believed in good roads, and always had. Prob- 
 ably the last man to join the majority went home 
 and told his wife that the original idea was his 
 own, and that he would have proposed it to 
 Oberlin but for the conviction that ministers 
 ought to confine themselves to the gospel and 
 let the labor question alone. If so, it may be 
 that the trusting soul believed him. I find no 
 record of this hypothetical man, but he must 
 have been there he always is and there could 
 scarcely have been an exception in this case to 
 the ordinary experience of late comers in suc- 
 cessful reforms. 
 
 Oberlin, as if he had been a contractor from 
 his youth up, assigned to each individual an 
 allotted post and gave personal instruction and 
 direction on every side. He did not fail to select 
 the most difficult places for himself and seemed 
 
 77 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 regardless of the thorns and loose stones which 
 bruised his hands. 
 
 With such courage and patience difficulties were 
 removed as the rocks and gravel were. The 
 demonstration of successful work brought re- 
 newed appreciation and aid from friends in Stras- 
 burg, and in the end a fine road was completed 
 along the course of the Bruche. Streams which 
 often inundate the highways were guided into 
 channels made to receive them and a wooden 
 bridge was constructed. Replaced later by stone, 
 it still bears the name then given it, "Le Pont 
 de la Charite." 
 
 Thirty years after this, Oberlin received a 
 letter from the mayor of Rothau, stating that 
 he saw the bridge needed repairs and requesting 
 that the necessary funds should be put to that 
 use. The reply of the man whose experience 
 is above related is characteristic: 
 
 SIR, THE MAYOR, The bridge the poor orphan 
 bridge is named " Bridge of Charity," because after 
 several accidents charity built it ; and until now charity 
 has maintained it. There are no other funds which 
 exist for this object. 
 
 May God be with you, Sir, the Mayor, and direct 
 
 Yours, 
 
 JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN. 
 
 78 
 
VI 
 
 CALL TO AMERICA 
 
VI 
 
 CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 (1775) 
 
 SEVEN years had passed in this missionary 
 work of laying foundations for better ways 
 of living and better lives in improved con- 
 ditions when Oberlin was startled by another 
 missionary question as unexpected as his first, 
 and which asked of him a still greater sacrifice. 
 A colony of German Protestants from Saltz- 
 burg in Austria, who had chosen exile instead 
 of the surrender of their faith, had located in the 
 State of Pennsylvania and had given the Scrip- 
 tural name of " Ebenezer " to their settlement. 
 Early in their history in this new country their 
 pastor and leader had died, and they had ap- 
 pealed to a distinguished theologian at Augs- 
 burg to secure for them a successor. Already 
 Oberlin's missionary successes were becoming 
 known to many, notwithstanding his remoteness 
 from observation, and the choice of a leader for 
 
 6 Si 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 this far-away ministry settled upon this devoted 
 pastor in the mountains. He was urged to take 
 the direction of the colony in America and do 
 for it what he had been doing for the moun- 
 taineers of the Vosges. The call of the people 
 exiled for faith's sake appealed deeply to his 
 sympathies. The colony in Ebenezer, with a 
 prospective large development, seemed to offer 
 him a wider scope for his missionary zeal. He 
 submitted the question to his wife, then in deli- 
 cate health. Her ready response was, " Where 
 thou goest, I will go," and notwithstanding Ober- 
 lin's deep interest in his present charge, this 
 seemed to him the call of God. 
 
 Letters to his brother and his mother, which 
 follow, appear to have been written under much 
 stress of feeling, and evidently are replies to their 
 appeals to dissuade him, and to have him recon- 
 sider his intention. He prefaced the first with 
 these lines: 
 
 " Ich will dir einen Alter bauen 
 Der Ebenetzer heissen soil, 
 Drauf soil man diese Worte schauen : 
 Gott fuhret seine Kinder wohl." l 
 
 1 " To Thee will I build an altar; 
 Ebenezer shall be its name, 
 Thereupon shall be seen these words: 
 God guides his children well." 
 82 
 
CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 BEST AND DEAREST OF BROTHERS, However great 
 the sorrow I feel at the very thought of leaving you 
 and our dear mother, I must nevertheless abide by my 
 determination, to which neither my wife nor myself 
 have been brought by any human influence. The fact 
 that every one stands for or against a deed cannot 
 decide a question of conscience. By baptism I have 
 contracted an alliance with a Master who knows more 
 than I and is more powerful, who has adopted me as 
 his son, who wishes to be my father, but who demands, 
 with filial love and devotion, obedience and submission. 
 ... I have begged God since my early youth to be 
 my guide always, to make me always see his will and 
 make me docile and faithful. He has done it, and I 
 have not been deceived in my expectations from him. 
 ... In a multitude of cases I have been able to notice 
 his special leadership. Whenever I was undecided as 
 to what to do, I called upon him for counsel, and it 
 was always granted me in some way or other; con- 
 sidering which I should be a most ungrateful and 
 shameless being if despite the countless fulfilment of 
 his promises I wished suddenly to turn away from 
 him and make my decision influenced by purely worldly 
 interests, by my own convenience or the advice of 
 men. 
 
 It is demanded of a man of honor that he act after 
 his own most sincere convictions. In my eyes I would 
 be unworthy of being your brother did I wish to act 
 otherwise, even if the persons who are wrongly thought 
 to have been the cause of my resolution were of an 
 entirely different opinion. 
 
 83 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 I did tell myself at first that God is blessing my 
 undertaking in this land, and that the good that I might 
 do in Ebenezer is uncertain. But who am I then to 
 have the right to argue thus in opposition ? Does not 
 the Lord himself know where to place his servants for 
 the greatest good of his cause? Must I then adore 
 God with my lips only, adding to the number of those 
 who know only how to say, " Lord, Lord ; " but if 
 I desire to adore him by doing his will, why should 
 I not go according to his voice? 
 
 As soon as I had received the letter in which was 
 the question of this call, I did what I always do in 
 doubtful cases. With entire confidence in his promises 
 I addressed myself to God in the name of Jesus Christ, 
 to beg him ardently to do what he has already done 
 many times for me, and to let me know whether I must 
 say Yes or No. My wife, to whom I had given this 
 letter containing the call withdrawing without say- 
 ing a word did the same, and we both to our mutual 
 surprise soon came to the profound conviction that 
 we must say " Yes, Lord ; here we are." 
 
 I know only too well that many persons do not know 
 the power of prayer; but I also know that it is not 
 because of any lack of clear and definite promises, nor 
 of any lack of God's faithfulness. If then it be the 
 will of God, as it is our conviction, all other consider- 
 ations must disappear. 
 
 Jesus is the sovereign shepherd of the flock at Ban- 
 de-la-Roche, and always will be, and will know how 
 to give it every time the one who is suited for it for 
 a subordinate pastor. 
 
CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 If he wishes us to serve him at Ebenezer, he who 
 holds the world in his hands will certainly find the 
 means to make us come there; and if we are to die 
 there, he will surely know on the day of resurrection 
 how to find the place where he shall have entrusted 
 us to the sleep of death. 
 
 I know well that our intentions and resolutions are 
 regarded by many as fanatical enthusiasm. But what 
 would it matter if they were to see this in our whole 
 conduct ? It is enough that I know that I seek earnestly 
 to make my thoughts and actions conform to the holy 
 word which I preach. If people allow themselves 
 some jests at our expense, we are reassured by the 
 words of the Holy Scripture, " Whosoever therefore 
 shall confess me before men, him will I confess also 
 before my Father which is in heaven." Besides, we 
 are fortified by other passages like this : " Not every 
 one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will 
 of my Father which is in heaven." " He that loveth 
 father or mother more than me is not worthy of 
 me." ... I must end. Will you ask me why I have 
 gone into so many details? Surely, rather more for 
 my own sake than for yours, dear brother, whose 
 righteousness I know, for I know you like to be useful 
 to me, and you can be in this case by communicating 
 this letter to all those who regard my decision from a 
 false point of view. 
 
 Farewell, and never fail to love less than you have 
 done all your life the one whom you have loved with 
 the most ardent and changeless affection, though he be 
 
 85 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 on the other hemisphere, your antipode, nevertheless 
 your faithful younger brother, 
 
 JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN, Pastor. 
 AUTUMN, 1774. 
 
 In the letter to his mother, which is lengthy 
 and more in detail, portions strictly relating to 
 his family experiences are omitted. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, Several dear friends say that 
 in my letter to my brother I have failed to prove that 
 it is according to God's will that I should go to Eben- 
 ezer. They are right. All that I wish to show in the 
 letter is that as a Christian, I could answer only in the 
 affirmative when I was asked if I were willing to 
 accept the call. I know that it does not necessarily 
 follow that God wishes one so disposed to go. 
 
 Oberlin next refers to the changes in his life 
 plans in going to the mountains instead of taking 
 the army chaplaincy, saying, "What the Lord 
 wants is the willing heart." He continues : 
 
 The same thing can happen in regard to Ebenezer. 
 That is, I cannot prove that it is the will of God that 
 I should go there. I cannot prove it until I am there, 
 or at least until I am on the way. God is my Father, 
 and all I have to do is to go where he tells me, like 
 an obedient child. This is what I have tried to do up 
 
 86 
 
CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 to this time. I still think that I must reply in the 
 affirmative for the following reasons : * 
 
 Second. Since I have taken a more direct path in 
 the kingdom of Jesus Christ and have acquired a more 
 special knowledge of the human mind, my heart has 
 been filled with pity for so many people, blind pagans, 
 who cost our Lord the same sacrifice as we others in 
 Strasburg and to whom it has not even been given to 
 taste the crumbs that fall from our table. These feel- 
 ings have inspired me to help such as much as lay 
 within my power. Strasburg is a nursery for the 
 clergy, among whom there are many excellent men. 
 How different it is in Asia, in Africa, and in America ! 
 Our Lord taught his disciples to consider humanity 
 everywhere as the hardest field. His doctrines form 
 our belief; but do our actions respond to them? Do 
 we work with the ardor Christianity demands for the 
 well-being of all the world? How many excellent 
 things could be done, how many thousands of souls 
 could enjoy in Jesus Christ the blessings which have 
 fallen to our lot, if with the mind of Christ we em- 
 braced a larger sphere with generous effort! These 
 souls abandoned by our selfishness, would they not 
 then fall to our care? How many times have I prayed 
 the Lord to dispose of me, and of the children he might 
 give me, and to make use of us where according to his 
 plans we would be the most useful! Ebenezer is a 
 German and Lutheran parish, but there are in its near 
 neighborhood four tribes of Indians which have daily 
 
 1 For the sake of brevity the first reason, which has been al- 
 ready given in the letter to his brother, is omitted. 
 
 87 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 connection with it. One meets there, moreover, a great 
 number of wretched Africans who serve as slaves. 
 
 Third. To learn languages one must have a good 
 memory; mine has always been poor. I have found 
 it difficult to acquire languages which do not have 
 analogy with the German or Latin. I know I would 
 meet with great difficulty in learning the Indian lan- 
 guage sufficiently well to be able to give instruction 
 in that tongue, but I could do much good indirectly 
 in forming institutions and in setting up schools for 
 young negroes. 
 
 Fourth. The poor condition of the parish of Eben- 
 ezer has deeply moved me. The duties of a pastor 
 are very laborious there. The plantations are separated 
 from one another by considerable distances. The roads 
 are bad and difficult for travel. The parish in this 
 condition is like an orphan since the death of their 
 worthy pastor, Bolzius. The schools need to be re- 
 formed, and the Ban-de-la-Roche has enabled me to 
 acquire some knowledge of the subject. 
 
 I could also profitably use the experience which I 
 have acquired here, in founding at Ebenezer different 
 establishments for their material and temporal devel- 
 opment as well as for their religious and spiritual 
 necessities. 
 
 Fifth. The parish at Waldbach is in much more 
 fortunate condition than that of Ebenezer. It has now 
 at its head a Protestant lord who approves and en- 
 courages the improvements already made. These im- 
 provements are already far enough advanced for a 
 conscientious successor with only moderate talents to 
 
 88 
 
CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 continue. Besides, Ban-de-la-Roche has always a com- 
 mander and friend in Mr. Stuber who will not cease 
 giving it his paternal attachment. . . . 
 
 My conscience tells me that I pray God not that he 
 may let me stay here, nor make me go, but only that 
 his will may be done, and that his kingdom may come, 
 and that I may submit entirely to his order. 
 
 I am, and will remain till death and after, dear 
 mother, 
 
 Your obedient, 
 
 JOHN FREDERIC. 
 BEGINNING 1775 
 
 Having settled the question in his own mind, 
 he prepared himself with great care for his mis- 
 sion across the sea. He examined geographies 
 and books on travel such as he could secure con- 
 cerning America. He took numerous notes and 
 drew up a plan of action for his new sphere of 
 activities. In anticipation of his departure he 
 prepared a farewell letter to his parish, intend- 
 ing to have it printed in a little booklet as a 
 souvenir and sent to them at his embarkment. 
 To communicate across the sea and get replies 
 to questions necessary to perfect the arrange- 
 ments required time, and at the very last, when 
 all had been adjusted and Oberlin was ready 
 for departure, word came from America that war 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 between the States and the mother country was 
 imminent; this was soon followed by the intel- 
 ligence that the conflict had begun in earnest, 
 and was active in the very State to which he 
 was going, and that his ministry would be liable 
 to the interruptions of war. Certainly his mis- 
 sionary plans for education and development in 
 the new country could not now be carried out. 
 It was plain to him and to all that he must wait 
 upon the issues of the war, a sad disappoint- 
 ment, as he had fully consecrated himself to 
 what he was confident was the will of God. 
 
 The farewell letter, here translated, found 
 among his papers after his death, never came 
 to the knowledge of his mountain parish. 
 
 To THE PARISHES OF WALDBACH IN THE COUNTRY OF BAN- 
 DE-LA-ROCHE : 
 
 MY VERY DEAR BROTHERS, BELOVED PARISHIONERS, 
 The faithful servant of Jesus Christ, to whose 
 generous care we owe the translation and printing of 
 this handsome booklet, has requested me to dedicate 
 it to you and say my last farewell. 
 
 What satisfaction it is to me to be able again to 
 speak to you by writing, now that I can no longer do 
 it by mouth ! This is at last the day of which I have 
 spoken to you so many times, to make you more atten- 
 tive to what I have preached to you in the name of 
 my Master. 
 
 90 
 
CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 The day of our separation! With what peace of 
 mind I could leave you if I knew you were all in the 
 hands of that faithful Saviour from whom I know that 
 neither the world nor the power of hell would be able 
 to snatch you away unless you yourselves separated 
 yourselves from him! 
 
 Oh, hasten yet, you who have neglected up to this 
 time to accept him; hasten while yet your hearts are 
 touched, hasten to prostrate yourselves at the feet of 
 Jesus your Redeemer and beg his pardon for your 
 sinful disregard. 
 
 Offer your hearts to him, just as they are; supplicate 
 him to change them and make them such as he wishes 
 them to be. 
 
 Never forget what he himself has said and caused 
 his faithful apostles to say which I have often re- 
 peated to you that one cannot be saved unless he 
 is regenerated; born anew, according to St. John 3, 
 and animated by his Spirit (Rom. 8:9, 14) ; that we 
 must be united to him as the branch to the tree, and 
 continually draw from him the strength for a holy life; 
 that all we do out of harmony with him, however beau- 
 tiful and noble it may appear in the eyes of the world 
 honest in a pagan fashion is of no value in his 
 eyes because the motive is not love and gratitude toward 
 him, who has done everything for our salvation and 
 has deserved that we should do everything for 
 him, and for the advancement of his kingdom. St. 
 John xv. 
 
 Oh, my dear flock, you whom the sovereign pastor 
 has deigned to entrust to me now for eight years, I 
 
 91 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 implore you attach yourselves to the divine pastor and 
 never to men. 
 
 Men are in his hands, and he is always able to give 
 you good faithful workers unless through lack of faith 
 and obedience toward him you render yourselves un- 
 worthy of it. 
 
 The Lord of the harvest now calls me, contrary to 
 my expectations, far from you to guard another one 
 of his flocks which has cost him the same price as 
 you, but which is in need of what many among you 
 have held in too slight esteem ; and they have no way 
 to meet their need. 
 
 We shall be separated as to the body, but I hope we 
 shall not be so by spirit. I have always tenderly loved 
 you. I love you still, and all the world's treasures 
 would not have accomplished what the command of my 
 divine Lord has done, I mean, to make me leave you. 
 But I shall never forget you. Oh, do not forget me 
 either. Do not forget the exhortations and words of 
 the Holy Scriptures which I have unceasingly repeated 
 to you. Do not forget to implore God's blessing on 
 the discourses which I shall address to my new flock 
 on the other side of the sea, and know that what you 
 shall ask of the Father in the name and for the king- 
 dom of Jesus he will grant unto you, and that all the 
 blessings he will grant to my American flock because 
 of your prayers will add to the brilliancy of the crowns 
 you have won by your zeal. 
 
 Farewell then, dear, my most dear Parishes. We 
 shall evidently not see each other again until we see 
 each other before the throne of the Lamb, where, filled 
 
 92 
 
CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 with rapture for all his great and divine goodness, we 
 will give eternal praise, honor, and thanksgiving for 
 all unto Him. Amen. 
 
 J. F. OBERLIN. 
 
 WRITTEN THIS 177- 
 
 These letters represent Oberlin's thought, feel- 
 ing, and expression at this period of his life. It 
 is impossible to read his farewell letter without 
 sharing in the deep disappointment which came 
 to him in the relinquishment of what he sup- 
 posed was an accomplished fact. The colony 
 at Ebenezer scattered and failed. We cannot 
 know what might have been its history with 
 such an organizer and leader as Oberlin; but 
 it was proved to be no cause for regret that 
 it was God's good pleasure that he should re- 
 main where his uncompleted missionary lessons 
 should not be interrupted. 
 
 Oberlin had always felt the deepest interest 
 in America. He carefully collected from every 
 available source facts about the country, which 
 he kept in a special portfolio made by himself 
 for the purpose. On this he pasted one of his 
 printed texts such as he distributed when he 
 called on his people as a reminder of his call 
 and the date, with these words: "He which 
 
 93 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and 
 he which soweth bountifully shall reap also 
 bountifully." 
 
 When it became known beyond the mountains 
 that the war between the colonies and the mother 
 country had detained Oberlin, efforts were made 
 to detach him from the work which he had 
 proposed to surrender by offers of command- 
 ing positions from several churches, but disap- 
 pointed as he was, nothing could tempt him 
 from missionary service. His reply to an in- 
 fluential church with its generous salary was, 
 " The best work for me is where I can do the 
 most good with the least recompense." 
 
 From that time he bent every energy to the 
 work in hand. Baron de Dietrich, lord of 
 the district, now caused the church at Fouday, 
 the same which is still standing, to be built for 
 Oberlin without expense to the parish, and in 
 many ways showed his appreciation and high 
 esteem for the good missionary who was bring- 
 ing new life to the fief. 
 
 94 
 
VII 
 
 BEREAVEMENT AND RENEWED CON- 
 SECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
VII 
 
 BEREAVEMENT AND RENEWED CONSE- 
 CRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 (1784) 
 
 IN 1784 the death of his beloved wife had a 
 most powerful influence both upon the direc- 
 tion of the thoughts and feeling of Ober- 
 lin and upon the whole course of his future. 
 Nothing had prepared Oberlin for his bereave- 
 ment. He was struck as by a thunderbolt, and 
 for some time it seemed impossible for him to 
 recover himself. In his diary we read : " I 
 prayed the Lord continually to let me die and 
 be buried with her. God, who sent this terrible 
 blow, treated me with great kindness, as a de- 
 lirious patient whom one seeks to recall slowly 
 to his senses." At length, however, after an 
 interval of melancholy stupor, as he recorded, 
 " I experienced the merciful assistance of God, 
 notwithstanding my overwhelming sorrow." 
 From that time no complaint, no murmur ever 
 7 97 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 escaped his lips. Every day he seemed to walk 
 in communion with her and to be conscious of 
 her .presence. He constantly looked forward to 
 the time when they should be reunited, and the 
 desire for this never left him in the succeeding 
 years. More than ever he lived as a citizen of 
 the other world. He never ceased to believe that 
 his wife watched over him and daily influenced 
 him. 
 
 The management of his household and the 
 care of his children were undertaken by Louise 
 Schlepler, who had come as a teacher and who 
 had lived in the Oberlin household for eight 
 years. She remained in this capacity as a friend 
 rather than as one in service during the life of 
 Oberlin, and her grave is beside his in the 
 churchyard at Fouday. 
 
 Oberlin's profound sorrow did not cause him 
 to relax his efforts for the redemption of his 
 people; he rather redoubled them, in order 
 that he might be found faithful when the mo- 
 ment of his departure from this life, which he 
 longed for, should arrive. He sought to use 
 every day as if it were to be his only day. 
 Realizing that all permanent advancement of the 
 people in their modes of life depended upon their 
 improvement in agriculture, he brought to this 
 
CONSECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 end every stimulus which he could command. 
 Organizing an agricultural club, he presided over 
 it. He introduced new vegetables and gave in- 
 struction as to their cultivation. He investigated 
 with the greatest care the nature of the soil and 
 learned what it was adapted to produce. By the 
 study of books and by correspondence he sought 
 the most improved methods of culture and made 
 careful inquiries as to the best productions of 
 similar soil and climate in Europe. He procured 
 flaxseed from Riga on the shores of the Baltic, 
 and clover-seed from Holland. The potato, which 
 had been previously introduced but had prac- 
 tically failed to pay for its planting, was thrown 
 aside and a new and excellent kind was brought 
 from one of the provinces of France. 
 
 A daughter of Oberlin testifies : " The cultiva- 
 tion of the potato was rare at the beginning of 
 my father's ministry. As in other places, there 
 was fear that this vegetable might be hurtful. 
 In the spring the ordinary food was wild herbs 
 cooked with milk; and people were extremely 
 embarrassed if their neighbors saw the potato 
 used as a food. It was eaten on the sly. They 
 were always careful, if any one entered during a 
 meal, to cover the dish, so that it might not be 
 known." 
 
 99 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Giving this cultivation of the potato his per- 
 sonal care, he soon saw the people exporting 
 from their successful crop to the people in the 
 valleys. New grasses also were procured. Lec- 
 tures were given upon the value of fertilizers, 
 showing the people how to collect fertilizing 
 material and how to apply it; how to drain 
 their meadows, how to protect them from the 
 washings of mountain torrents, and how thus to 
 prevent the wasting of their lands. Much waste 
 land was in this way brought into use and 
 enclosed. 
 
 In his appeal to the villages for the irrigation 
 of their fields, which came to be done with 
 thoroughness and great advantage, he makes his 
 scheme a religious duty. " I beg all those who 
 do not contribute with all their ability and in- 
 fluence to make the needful arrangements for 
 a just and brotherly system of watering the 
 meadows, to consider that the love of God and 
 of one's neighbor is the sum of all the com- 
 mandments." Many of their grass-lands, for 
 lack of irrigation, were cultivated to so little 
 purpose that it is said the wife could carry home 
 in her apron all the hay her husband could mow 
 in half a day. He urged them to put aside their 
 rude agricultural implements, himself buying 
 
 100 
 
CONSECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 better and more modern ones from Strasburg, 
 to be paid for by the people on instalments. 
 
 Never was there a more practical utilitarian 
 in missions. Nothing escaped his indefatigable 
 attention. Nothing was beneath it. His ardor 
 and enthusiasm were only surpassed by the pa- 
 tience and prudence which he used in inducing 
 his parishioners to adopt his suggestions. No 
 sooner was his agricultural club at work than 
 he added a horticultural society and began to 
 create nurseries, from which he distributed young 
 plants, selecting the trees more appropriate for 
 the climate. 
 
 But with all the religious exhortation, attached 
 to his instructions in farming, tree planting, and 
 the care of cattle, he never lacked those who 
 opposed him step by step. They could not under- 
 stand how a man born and bred in a city could 
 get any wisdom worth their consideration along 
 the lines of their own experience. They had 
 become convinced against their will that he had 
 discovered something about road-making, but 
 that he should presume to a knowledge above 
 theirs in practical farming, the care of land 
 and the culture of it, roused resentful objections 
 continually. Every proposition must needs be 
 demonstrated before it would be accepted. 
 
 101 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 His success with his fields and fruit trees and 
 garden was his answer to their questionings. 
 Belonging to the parsonage were two barren 
 fields which had always been noted for the poor- 
 ness of their soil, and through which was a 
 much frequented thoroughfare. His agricul- 
 tural neighbors smiled and wagged their heads 
 knowingly when their parson began to turn this 
 poor land into a nursery of fruit trees, in- 
 tending to make it an orchard. They saw him 
 deeply trench the ground and fill it with suit- 
 able soil. Next, he procured approved scions of 
 apples, pears, cherries, and other fruits. His 
 watch and care, his judicious thinning out and 
 pruning upon a field thought to be unfit for any 
 profitable use, brought a fruitful orchard in a 
 few years as his justification. The excellent 
 fruits, such as were new to the locality, before 
 the eyes of all the passers-by spoke for them- 
 selves and for him. With all their inherited 
 ideas and lack of ideas, they were once more 
 convinced that Oberlin knew something besides 
 his theological certainties, and gradually became 
 more willing to take his piety and practical util- 
 ity mixed 1 , as they were indeed in generous 
 doses. 
 
 So earnest was Oberlin in the material better- 
 
 102 
 
CONSECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 ment of his villages that his steadfast friend, 
 Stuber, in Strasburg, wrote him a second letter, 
 warning him lest his regard for these practi- 
 calities should crowd upon his spiritual duties. 
 Oberlin was the last man on the face of the 
 earth who needed that caution! It was this 
 very personal contact with the every-day world 
 and his interest in meeting every-day wants that 
 protected him from a natural mysticism and from 
 a tendency to fanaticism. These duties for the 
 neglected poor were so many safety-valves for 
 his fervent spirit. By directing his zeal and 
 enthusiasm from that which is purely spiritual 
 into healthful channels and engaging his extraor- 
 dinary earnestness in ordinary affairs, his bal- 
 ance of thought and feeling were preserved and 
 kept sound. All that he did and urged upon his 
 people was included in his interpretation of the 
 ministry of the gospel. Religious motives were 
 underneath all his instructions and plans, and 
 were invariably in evidence. In his directions 
 for irrigation, for example, he added, " Our Lord 
 died for us; let us live for him," and one of 
 the rules of the horticultural society was, " Each 
 member should try to distinguish himself by 
 Christian conduct, brotherly kindness, consider- 
 ation, and politeness towards his fellows." 
 
 103 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Take, for example, a direction to his people 
 on planting trees, sent to them in a circular 
 letter: 
 
 DEAR FRIENDS, Satan, the enemy of mankind, 
 rejoices when we demolish and destroy. Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, on the contrary, rejoices when we labor 
 for the public good. You all desire to be saved by 
 him and hope to be partakers of his glory. Please him 
 then by all possible means. 
 
 He is pleased when from a principle of love you 
 plant trees for the public benefit. Now is the season. 
 Be willing then to plant them. Plant them also in 
 the best possible manner. Remember that you do it 
 to please Him. Put all your roads in good condition. 
 Ornament them. Use some of your trees for this 
 purpose and attend to their growth. 
 
 Another circular, curious and characteristic, 
 reads : 
 
 DEAR FRIENDS OF FOUDAY, Several persons at 
 Zolbach have long desired that the road between Fou- 
 day and Zolbach, in your district, should be mended 
 and put in good repair. Such a measure would be 
 greatly for the advantage of Fouday. But for whose 
 sake will you do it? Will you do it from love to your 
 heavenly Father? Will you do it from love to the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who during his stay upon earth went 
 about doing good and who redeemed us to be a peculiar 
 people zealous of good works? Will you do it from 
 
 104 
 
CONSECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 love to God's children at Zolbach? Will you do it 
 from a compassion to the animals which your heavenly 
 Father has created? etc. 
 
 Another circular, from his own press, asked 
 these questions among others : " Do you punc- 
 tually contribute your share towards repairing 
 roads? Have you planted upon the common at 
 least twice as many trees as there are heads in 
 your family? Have you planted them properly, 
 or only as idle and ignorant people would do 
 to save themselves trouble? Have you proper 
 drains in your yards for carrying off the refuse 
 water? Do you keep a dog unless there is ab- 
 solute necessity?" Oberlin was thus constantly 
 reminding the people of their daily duties as a 
 part of their Christian life. 
 
 This every-day attention to schools, to parish 
 work, to roads and lands and cattle and trees 
 did not exhaust his plans. When he entered 
 upon his mission there was not a mechanic in 
 the entire district. He set the example in this 
 direction with a workshop of his own, where he 
 had a turner's lathe, a complete set of carpen- 
 ter's tools, a printing-press, and a bookbindery. 
 In connection with his schools he selected those 
 in whom he discovered mechanical tastes and 
 
 105 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 had them trained as shoemakers, blacksmiths, 
 carpenters, glaziers, painters, and masons. Such 
 as he could not provide with instruction at home 
 he sent to Strasburg, that they might learn their 
 trades and return to teach others; and greatly 
 to his satisfaction, he succeeded finally in induc- 
 ing the sons of a prosperous manufacturer at 
 Basle in Switzerland to establish a branch of their 
 ribbon factory at Fouday, which furnished the 
 young women of the villages with regular and 
 profitable employment. 
 
 One reason for the distressing condition of the 
 people as Oberlin found them was their custom 
 of constantly mortgaging their future, always 
 anticipating their scanty crops, which kept them 
 in peonage because of their debts. It was a 
 great victory over established thriftlessness when 
 he succeeded in putting an end to this, and in 
 getting those whose lives were burdened with 
 special obligations square with the world. He 
 did not cease his exhortations to this end. " You 
 are not living Christian lives until you have paid 
 all your debts, your royal and your feudal taxes, 
 the weaver, the schoolmaster, the carpenter, the 
 nailmaker, the grocer, the workman, all. But it 
 is not enough to pay one's debts. One must 
 avoid making others." 
 
 106 
 
CONSECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 Another phase of his wise philanthropies was 
 his organization of practical charities. " The 
 poor ye have always with you," said our Lord; 
 and here, while many were rising above their 
 extreme poverty, there were those who could not, 
 or did not, succeed in getting beyond want. The 
 wolf was ever at their door. To help such 
 Oberlin organized, presided over, and directed a 
 " Charity Society," giving it his personal care, 
 that the funds raised for the sick and infirm and 
 worthy needy ones should not aid or encourage 
 indolence or preventable want; and he was very 
 insistent that all applications should have most 
 careful investigation. In every case an answer 
 was strictly required as to the cause of the 
 necessity. Had the applicant been careful to live 
 within his means? Had he paid his debts when 
 he could? Had he contributed to the relief of 
 his fellow parishioners aforetime? Had he 
 learned to practise some handicraft? Had his 
 children been taught at school to work? 
 
 Complaints were naturally made of the strict- 
 ness of some of his conditions; hence attached 
 to the interrogations were explanations and 
 reasons for them, with instructions in behalf 
 of the industry and of better management and 
 prudence. 
 
 107 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Thus his work went on, while he was person- 
 ally developing agriculture; personally looking 
 after mechanical industries; personally superin- 
 tending clubs and organizing charities, with reg- 
 ular and personal visitations from house to house 
 with advice and counsel, encouraging the people 
 in their new habits of industry and thrift. 
 Meanwhile the poor people, whom he had found 
 in physical destitution and equally poor in social 
 life, were year by year realizing their condition 
 and raising their standards of living. They were 
 even speaking in a different language. Their 
 rude patois of Lorraine dialect with its strong 
 guttural had given way in all the younger people 
 to a pure and correct French, and they could 
 write it accurately. The schools were well taught. 
 The churches had thoughtful attendants. Good 
 roads had taken the places of ways that were 
 little more than by-paths. Farmers were no 
 longer without suitable tools and implements. 
 Their crops were rewarding them. There were 
 mechanics capable for all home work and able 
 to take apprentices. More than all in this varied, 
 anxious, increasing care, the pastor had never 
 neglected his study. His pulpit preparation was 
 made with scrupulous attention. What he could 
 not do by day he did while others slept. This 
 
 108 
 
CONSECRATION TO PUBLIC WELFARE 
 
 kind of sacrificial life had now gone on for 
 twenty-two years, sixteen of which were shared 
 with his most noble and devoted wife. Great 
 had been the faith and patience and great the 
 toil. Great also had been the achievement until 
 now, at the age of forty-nine years, came a new 
 and wider experience. 
 
 109 
 
VIII 
 DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
ym 
 
 DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 (1789-1795) 
 
 WHILE Oberlin was devoting himself 
 to the immediate interests under his 
 eye, the French Revolution came. 
 Louis XV had left to his successor a fierce and 
 deadly hatred among the suffering French people 
 towards the throne and the privileged orders. 
 His scandalous and corrupt misgovernment had 
 earned for him the contempt as well as the 
 maledictions of his subjects, and had begotten a 
 criticism of all existing institutions, political and 
 domestic. The agitation was felt even in the 
 remote hills of the Vosges. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, with his specious air 
 of philanthropy, was developing his ideas on the 
 reconstruction of society with the charm of style 
 which was particularly attractive to the French 
 people, but which was subtly undermining the 
 s 113 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 foundations both of religion and of government. 
 The court and privileged orders, given over to 
 their corrupt pleasures, were too blind to see the 
 signs of the times. 
 
 Louis XVI had come to the throne at the time 
 when Oberlin was preparing for his intended 
 mission in the New World. Louis XV, his con- 
 temptible predecessor, bequeathed to him, not 
 only the impending danger, but also left him 
 totally uninstructed in the knowledge of govern- 
 ment, the affairs of state, and the duties of his 
 future station. Under these conditions the spirit 
 of lawlessness, which soon manifested itself in 
 the cities, became insurrection and spread rapidly 
 into the provinces. Peasants declared themselves 
 against landed proprietors, and a general abro- 
 gation of the ancient feudal constitution and 
 rights which had obtained for many centuries 
 in France was voted. 
 
 The French Assembly was framing a new 
 constitution, which was to abolish privilege and 
 sweep away whatever feudalism still existed. The 
 " Declaration of the Rights of Man," which at 
 this time appealed to the French people and 
 which ranks, as Madame de Stael wrote, side 
 by side with the " English Bill of Rights " and 
 the American " Declaration," in the times which 
 
 114 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 followed became a part of Oberlin's experience 
 and history. 
 
 He had all the youth of his parishes commit 
 this Declaration of Rights to memory. Every 
 week they were to recite it regularly: 
 
 All men are born and continue free and equal in 
 rights. Social distinctions are purely conventional. 
 
 Society is an association to preserve the natural 
 rights of man. 
 
 Sovereignty resides in the nation. All authority 
 vested in an individual or in a body of men comes 
 expressly from the nation. 
 
 Liberty is the power of doing what we will, so long 
 as it does not injure another; the only limits of each 
 man's natural rights are such as to secure the same 
 rights to others; these limits are determinable only 
 by the law. 
 
 The law can forbid only such actions as are mis- 
 chievous to society. " Quod lex non vetat, permittit." 
 
 Law is the expression of the general will; all citi- 
 zens have equal rights according to their fitness to 
 fulfil all offices in the state. 
 
 Accusation, arrest, detention, can only be in ac- 
 cordance with the law. 
 
 The law must be reasonable ; it must have no retro- 
 active force. 
 
 Every one must be deemed innocent till he has been 
 convicted; persons under arrest on suspicion must 
 therefore be treated gently. 
 
 All men are free to hold what religious views they 
 
 "5 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 will, provided they are not subversive to the public 
 order. 
 
 Freedom of speech, of writing and printing, save 
 in cases reserved by law, is one of the most precious 
 of the rights of man. 
 
 A public force is needed to guarantee the rights of 
 man. 
 
 To support such a force, a common contribution is 
 necessary, which is to be equally levied on all citizens 
 according to their means. 
 
 Society has a right to demand from every public 
 servant an account of his administration. 
 
 Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no 
 one can be deprived of it save when public necessity, 
 legally established, demands it, and then only with 
 the conditions of a just and previously determined 
 indemnity. 
 
 This certainly was a strong dose of patriotism 
 for Oberlin's young people, young women as 
 well as young men. They were the chief prin- 
 ciples out of which the Revolution grew. They 
 did not contemplate the destruction of the mon- 
 archy, but they did mean that it should be limited 
 and the people safeguarded. Louis XVI was 
 not ready to become a constitutional king, and 
 the revolutionary tide rose with a force not to 
 be controlled. He had now to deal, not with the 
 people, but with the Revolution. In the name 
 
 116 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 of " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity " the cry 
 arose, " Death to the Tyrant ! Death to him or 
 to us ! " and it did not cease until the ill-starred 
 king went to the guillotine in the Place de la 
 Revolution. 
 
 The mountaineers, rejoicing in the downfall of 
 feudalism and in the promises of human rights, 
 proposed to do their part in welcoming the 
 change, and with popular festivities celebrated 
 their relief, usually held on one or another of 
 the mountain tops. 
 
 Oberlin was patriot as well as prophet. Real- 
 izing the hopeless condition of his country if 
 the principles of liberty should fail to rest upon 
 religion, he sought to hold the mountaineers to 
 a true conception of patriotism. He presided 
 over their celebrations in order to direct them, 
 and to give them the solemn and serious char- 
 acter which rightly belonged to them. He was 
 sure to be with them, leading them in prayer 
 for their distracted country. 
 
 On the 1 3th of November, 1791, following the 
 fete of the Constitution, the people of the district 
 came together in the church at Fouday. Oberlin 
 handed the mayors of the different villages their 
 badges of office, and reminded them that though 
 these badges which they were to wear were light 
 
 117 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 burdens, the duties which they represented were 
 not light. As they had newly come to office, he 
 counseled them to keep themselves upright and 
 without moral blemish, and lifting his hand 
 heavenward, prayed " that the immense giants 
 of the aristocracy might be crushed, that the 
 Lord would make his face to shine upon the 
 friends of the Constitution, that the people might 
 be worthy of the new order of things about to 
 be established, and that righteous peace might 
 come to France under the scepter of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 All this time Austria, Prussia, Piedmont, and 
 Spain could scarcely keep their hands off this 
 French frontier of Alsace. Its people were liv- 
 ing under the constant threat of these powers. 
 A special pretext for hostilities soon arose out 
 of the grievances of certain petty German princes 
 whose inherited claims to feudal jurisdiction in 
 the Vosges had now been swept away by the 
 action of France, and who demanded restitu- 
 tion. This led to a declaration of war early in 
 1792. 
 
 Responding to a call for volunteers, many 
 young men of Oberlin's parishes, encouraged by 
 their pastor, enlisted. He assembled them at the 
 church and urged them to be good soldiers and 
 
 118 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 to carry with them the thought at all times that 
 God was their leader and defender. " If you are 
 called to your country's aid in foreign service, 
 remember that we are not enemies of the people 
 whom we withstand. They are as much to be 
 pitied as we are for the tyranny of the princes 
 who have brought war upon them and upon us. 
 Be therefore compassionate towards every one 
 everywhere. Carry the love of God in your 
 hearts and in all your thoughts. Obtain through 
 constant prayer the power to love men with all 
 your hearts, and God will be with you in the 
 foreign land and bring you safely back to your 
 home. But if any should be called to find his 
 grave far from here, if he is where God and 
 duty led him, he will be, when called, nearer 
 heaven." 
 
 Oberlin did not know then that his own son, 
 his eldest son, bearing his name, Frederic, a 
 youth of much promise, at the time a medical 
 student looking forward to the mission of his 
 life, would be one of the first to fall in battle. 
 For the execution of a specially dangerous serv- 
 ice a volunteer was called for; as might have 
 been expected from his father's son, he volun- 
 teered and gave up his life. 
 
 Events were now moving very swiftly in 
 119 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 France. The war which had begun under the 
 king was all the more urgent under the Repub- 
 lic. The army sent a deputation to the revolu- 
 tionary convention in session to thank it " for 
 having reduced them to the necessity of conquer- 
 ing/' It was war without now, and a " Reign 
 of Terror " within. " If 1789 was the revolution 
 of justice, 1793 was the revolution of hatred," 
 wrote Jules Simon. It had come to this, a revo- 
 lution of hatred, and the far-away hills of the 
 Vosges were not too remote to realize their share 
 of it. With the government of Robespierre and 
 the Jacobins, the religion of Jesus Christ was 
 formally proscribed and all Christian worship 
 was prohibited. There was to be no God and 
 there were to be no churches. During these 
 dreadful times almost all men of learning were 
 arrested. Pastors saved their lives by flight. 
 The brother of Oberlin was in prison. Oberlin 
 himself was compelled to close his church and 
 his life was in peril, but he determined to re- 
 main where he was. His foresight found him 
 with a mechanic's license which he had obtained 
 a year previous, not knowing then what might 
 eventuate. As an artisan, he immediately or- 
 ganized a club named " The People's Society," 
 and arranged for a meeting with the club in the 
 
 120 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 discontinued churches. A board was selected 
 from the people of the villages and the gather- 
 ings were held in strict parliamentary form. 
 Some motion concerning the public welfare 
 would be considered, when the president of the 
 club would invite Oberlin to remark upon it. 
 This gave him an opportunity to whip Satan 
 soundly without calling him by name, and to 
 expound the Beatitudes and the teachings of 
 " The Sermon on the Mount " without directly 
 indicating their source and inspiration. He thus 
 records his condition : " I was prohibited all pub- 
 lic functions by the revolutionary government, 
 and I established a club in the place of divine 
 service to enable us to continue our assembly." 
 Its formation is thus given : " When the Na- 
 tional Convention passed its decree prohibiting 
 public worship and requiring a ' Public Orator ' 
 to enforce the principles of liberty and to de- 
 nounce the tyrant, a meeting of the people was 
 held, a club was formed, and one of the school- 
 masters was elected president. He at once pro- 
 posed citizen Oberlin as the Public Orator, which 
 was carried unanimously. ' Now/ said the Ora- 
 tor, 'the next business is to fix a place and a 
 day of meeting. It seems to me that there is 
 no place in all this district so convenient as that 
 
 121 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 which has been heretofore used for public wor- 
 ship/ This was approved. ' As to the day of 
 assembly,' continued the Orator, ' we cannot fix 
 Monday, Wednesday, or Friday because they are 
 market days at Strasburg; what do you think 
 of the old Sunday at nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing?' This was carried unanimously. Accord- 
 ingly, on the next Sunday, the citizen Orator 
 used the pulpit as a tribune, and beginning by 
 reading the National Convention Decree, pro- 
 ceeded as follows : ' According to this decree, I 
 am to exhort you against the tyrants, and we 
 are to confer for their destruction. Here in our 
 peaceful valley we certainly have no such tyrants 
 as the Convention describes, and it would be use- 
 less for me to speak about them. But I can 
 name and describe to you other tyrants who live 
 not only in this valley but in your own houses, 
 aye, even in your hearts. These tyrants are 
 hatred, avarice, impurity, fleshly lusts, impiety, 
 and pride. These are the tyrants I shall de- 
 nounce here, and I shall confer with you on the 
 best means of bringing them down. I believe 
 the best and the only means now and to all 
 eternity are repentance towards God and faith 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ.' ' In this form he met 
 the " Decree." 
 
 122 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 Madame de Stein, in her Souvenirs of Alsatia, 
 gives some picturesque details of one of these 
 club meetings: 
 
 Desiring to be present at one of these, we deter- 
 mined to go to Fouday. When we arrived, the people 
 were already assembled at the parish church. We 
 found the benches all occupied by club men, excise 
 officers, and women. Above and all around is a gal- 
 lery where the organ was, and the young people were. 
 The pulpit was at the right. The service had begun. 
 The hymns had already been sung, to our regret. We 
 shared the benches. The examination of the boys and 
 girls was at that moment on " The Rights of Man," 
 which they knew by heart. The girls answered ques- 
 tions with gentleness and modesty, but the boys, with 
 such martial tones that I felt they would know how to 
 defend their rights and be guardians of liberty. It 
 reminded me of the chorus of young and old men in 
 ancient Greece. 
 
 The President arose, read the minutes of the last 
 meeting, and referred to a discourse which one of the 
 members had made at a previous meeting which 
 actually was a sermon of Oberlin's and called upon 
 him to finish what he had not then time to say. 
 Oberlin, who was in a corner upon the bench, among 
 the club members, took off his great cloak and went 
 upon the improvised tribune, and in a very natural 
 manner led in prayer, such as it is customary to offer 
 before divine service. Then followed a most Chris- 
 tian sermon, well adapted to his listeners. I admired 
 
 123 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 him, for it took courage to speak so plainly. I was glad 
 indeed to hear this good Oberlin. I found united in 
 him a holy enthusiasm with a frank and original ex- 
 pression which appealed to my heart. Every one knelt 
 in prayer, and the women for the most part bowed 
 their heads in their hands. 
 
 A subsequent visit at his house by Madame 
 de Stein is thus related: 
 
 Brought to speak upon the burning topic of the day 
 the pending Revolution he thus expressed him- 
 self : " All that has happened to us reminds me of 
 a Saturday when the cleaning up begins for Sunday. 
 The furniture is taken out of the room and everything 
 is turned upside down. They dust, they beat ; and the 
 disorder is terrible. One finds himself in a cloud of 
 dust, so that it is impossible to breathe in the dirty 
 place. Many things are broken; legs of chairs come 
 off, and the like, but all will be mended though at 
 added expense and made firm again. Meanwhile 
 the parlor is cleansed, and the furniture one thing after 
 another restored. Cleanliness and order come out of 
 the disorder and are the results of the dreadful up- 
 heaval. Sunday comes, and all is fair and shiny. The 
 master returns from his absence and finds the place 
 better than it was on Friday. 
 
 This was a cheerful way in which to reas- 
 sure the good lady. But Oberlin's heart was 
 bleeding when he said it. He was bearing the 
 
 124 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 loss of his first-born in great sorrow, yet with 
 entire submission to God's providence. The 
 fearful and awful conditions of the Revolution 
 were with him and heavy upon his heart night 
 and day. It was his wisdom, however, to talk op- 
 timistically to his guest, and it was his firm belief 
 that out of the bitter experiences would come 
 the "rights of man." The Abbe Gregoire, a 
 Catholic ecclesiastic in France, of much distinc- 
 tion, learned about Oberlin's patriotism and en- 
 tered into correspondence with him. Oberlin 
 fully sympathized with his Catholic brother, who 
 rejoiced because he had seen in France " the 
 whole infamous race of kings exterminated : they 
 have done only harm. I would prefer the ten 
 plagues of Egypt to a king/' 
 
 This "Society of the People" attracted the 
 attention of the Jacobins. They suspected that 
 the Ban-de-la-Roche, and particularly Oberlin's 
 house, served as a refuge to those who had fled 
 for safety during the "Terror" in Paris. Hence, 
 the parsonage had several visits of gendarmes 
 who were looking for offenders. A handful of 
 revolutionary tyrants from Strasburg established 
 what they called La Propagande Revolutionnaire 
 and in a spirit of impious atrocity began a cir- 
 cuit with a traveling guillotine, and put to death 
 
 125 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 whom they pleased. It is said that fifty thou- 
 sand Alsatians took refuge in Germany. 
 
 It was at this time that the Marseillaise Hymn 
 was born in the home of Baron de Dietrich, then 
 mayor of Strasburg and lord of the fief, which 
 included the parishes of Oberlin. He was the 
 son of Oberlin's special patron and was Ober- 
 lin's friend. Rouget de Lisle, a young officer 
 of engineers who was wont to relieve the tedi- 
 ousness of his garrison life by writing verses 
 and the music for them, was a guest of the 
 mayor, who said to the company, " Strasburg 
 will soon have a patriotic fete, I am thinking, 
 and De Lisle must bring us one of his hymns 
 that will carry his ardent feelings to the souls 
 of the people." De Lisle found his way to his 
 lodgings and began to give utterance to his 
 thoughts, singing altogether and writing noth- 
 ing. In the morning (April 25, 1792) the chant 
 of the night returned to him; he wrote down 
 the words, made the notes of music, and ran 
 to Dietrich's. They called together some friends. 
 One of the young ladies played while De Lisle 
 sang. The hymn of the nation was found; 
 De Lisle named it " The War Song for the Army 
 of the Rhine," and the band of the National Guard 
 played it on Sunday, four days later. It was 
 
 126 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 received with immense enthusiasm. It flew from 
 town to town through all the orchestras, and in 
 two months it had reached Marseilles, where the 
 clubs adopted it and renamed it after their city. 
 It was called " the liquid fire of the Revolution/' 
 'To Oberlin's great grief the unhappy Dietrich, 
 a few months after the notes were first sung in 
 his own home, marched to its accompaniment to 
 the scaffold, and De Lisle himself only escaped 
 death by flight into the hiding-places of the Jura 
 mountains. These were the days when Oberlin 
 was in great personal peril and when he was 
 visited from Strasburg by an official, afterwards 
 supposed to be St. Just, who spent the night at 
 Oberlin's house. He appears to have satisfied 
 himself that the man who had demitted his cleri- 
 cal functions and become a mechanic might safely 
 be permitted to retain his head. At one time 
 Oberlin's house was searched when a refugee 
 was within, but who was not discovered, owing 
 to the tact and marvelous coolness of Oberlin. 
 The officers left him with ample apologies for 
 their intrusion, while the suspect was within 
 hearing of their regrets for the unnecessary visit. 
 The tact and courage of Oberlin in these trying 
 times is seen in an address made in 1794 to the 
 younger members of his flock: 
 
 127 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 " I desire," he said in his address, " that the people 
 of the French Republic should be animated by truly 
 republican sentiments. I wish them to understand that 
 every individual ought to live for the public good. We 
 are republicans when from love to the public we en- 
 deavor both by precept to stimulate our children to 
 active beneficence and to seek to render them useful 
 to others by attending to such pursuits as are likely to 
 increase the public prosperity. 
 
 " We are republicans when we endeavor to imbue 
 the minds of our children with such knowledge as may 
 be likely in mature life to make them useful in the 
 station they are called to occupy, and when we teach 
 them to love their neighbors as themselves. 
 
 " We are republicans when we preserve our children 
 from that self-interested spirit which at the present 
 time seems to have gained more ascendency than ever 
 when so many care only for themselves and labor 
 for the public good only as they are compelled to do 
 so. Ah, far from us be this infernal spirit, as anti- 
 republican as it is anti-Christian." 
 
 He concluded his address by praying for all 
 true republicans. The aptitude with which he 
 blended his political and religious admonitions 
 revealed the man. He escaped the Terrorists by 
 proclaiming his republican sentiments, but he 
 managed to work in a good deal of sound 
 preaching in the way in which he did it. 
 
 He took his chances, however. In due time 
 128 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 he was summoned to Strasburg for examination. 
 His statement before the judges was : " In my 
 instruction I always restricted myself to that 
 which would help my brothers and make them 
 good patriots, good fathers, zealous republicans, 
 faithful and praiseworthy citizens in every cir- 
 cumstance. I gave up at a meeting of the 
 people a while ago the neckband and cloak which 
 I formerly wore. I always disliked these vain 
 distinctions. As to royalty, it had to be abol- 
 ished, and I began several years ago to inspire 
 my hearers with republican sentiments." He 
 was allowed to continue " The Society of the 
 People." But later on the second summons came, 
 this time held before the mayor and the munici- 
 pal council of Fouday, and Oberlin there signed 
 the following declaration : " I recognize that the 
 universality of the citizens of France is a sov- 
 ereign authority. I promise to obey and submit 
 to the laws of the republic." 
 
 Still, he remained under suspicion. On the 
 28th day of July, 1794, while at the house of a 
 citizen of Waldbach to celebrate a christening, 
 a revolutionary commissioner appeared with an 
 order of arrest. The next morning, escorted by 
 the officer and also by many of his dismayed 
 parishioners, he was walking on his way to 
 9 129 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Valle de Ville. On his arriving at Schlestadt 
 en route he was consigned under guard with the 
 pastor of Rothau, who was arrested with him, 
 to a little inn for the night. At the hotel table 
 were seated Jacobin functionaries, who took oc- 
 casion to pour their contempt upon evangelical 
 belief. This was more than Oberlin could stand, 
 and called forth from him such vigorous defense 
 that it was said the best place for him would 
 be the military prison at Besangon. He would 
 undoubtedly have arrived there, but at that in- 
 stant the startling news came of the fall of 
 Robespierre. His head had rolled upon the scaf- 
 fold. The " Reign of Terror " was over. This 
 brought deliverance to thousands in prisons, and 
 to Oberlin, who beyond question was on his way 
 to one. 
 
 Meanwhile during this period Oberlin was de- 
 prived of his usual income, which was meager 
 enough at the best. His parishioners made the 
 utmost exertions to meet the emergency, agree- 
 ing when the Revolution began to make an an- 
 nual collection of fourteen hundred francs 
 ($280). The first year they raised less than 
 eleven hundred and fifty ($230), and during the 
 remaining time of common distress this was re- 
 duced to less than four hundred francs ($80), 
 
 130 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 which was his entire yearly revenue, excepting 
 his humble personal earnings. The almost total 
 failure of the annual supplies left him and his 
 household largely dependent upon their own 
 labor for the actual necessities of life, and may 
 account for a most serious illness which brought 
 him to death's door, said to have been " brought 
 on by over-exertion." His greatest trial was his 
 inability to aid others in these hard times, as 
 formerly, and during the delirium of his sick- 
 ness he was perpetually asking his attendant for 
 funds to help him in benevolent plans. From 
 this illness his constitution never quite recovered 
 its extraordinary vigor. 
 
 After Robespierre's overthrow Oberlin imme- 
 diately announced his purpose to receive twelve 
 pupils to instruct within his home. He had no 
 difficulty in securing these, as the girls who had 
 been sent to his mountain schools from distant 
 parts had been in great repute as teachers, and 
 Oberlin's testimonials were readily accepted as 
 surety for sound instruction and gentle manners. 
 As soon as it was known that he would take pupils 
 for personal instruction, the children of several 
 foreigners of distinction were committed to him, 
 and he was once more in the receipt of a regular 
 income. It was a happy day for him when he 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 was again able to resume his pastorate and gather 
 his villagers to their churches for the open and 
 unhindered worship of God. 
 
 When he gathered his scattered flock together, 
 he declared to them that henceforth he would 
 serve them without any fixed salary. Every one 
 knew the way to the parsonage and might bring 
 his share to whatever amount he pleased and 
 at whatever time, and if any should bring noth- 
 ing he would not feel hurt; he would consider 
 that it was only the inability to contribute. They 
 had had a hard time together, and he would not 
 add to their burdens. He desired that they should 
 contribute in the same manner what they could 
 afford for the payment of the schoolmasters, and 
 likewise for charitable purposes. It might be " in 
 the form of goods, provisions, or money." 
 
 Though he suffered at times for daring thus 
 to interpret literally the Scripture, "Take no 
 thought for the morrow," as to his personal 
 wants, he was enabled to live in his extremely 
 frugal way. A sack of flour would be found 
 at his door, no one having been seen to bring 
 it. Butter, eggs, and fruit would appear when 
 it was known that he was to entertain strangers. 
 At one time, for example, when he " was called 
 upon to pay an important bill the next day and 
 
 132 
 
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 his purse was entirely empty/' he writes : " I went 
 for my usual walk towards the little forest and 
 said in my heart : ' My God, thou knowest my 
 trouble and all my needs. Thou wilt not let me 
 remain incapable of fulfilling my engagements ! ' 
 While returning to the village I met a woman 
 who w r as standing aside. She timidly ap- 
 proached me : ' Oh, my dear pastor, can you for- 
 give me? Several years ago when I was in 
 great trouble you lent me a sum of money which 
 I was not able to return when it was due. Here 
 it is at last. Forgive my long delay.' ' 
 
 Oberlin now felt that the most trying times 
 were over and looked forward to better days. 
 For the republic he had high hopes. He did not 
 see, and others did not, that the first day of 
 Bonaparte meant the last day of the republic. 
 This patriot pastor looked for a new country 
 and new institutions in place of a single man; 
 the development of new sentiments, new man- 
 ners, and new life with free institutions. The 
 stringent military despotism which followed for 
 fourteen years did not, however, affect the local 
 work of Oberlin. While the great general was 
 campaigning over the continent, triumphing over 
 the proudest monarchies of Europe, dethroning 
 kings and enthroning members of his family, the 
 
 133 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 Protestant churches were unmolested, and the 
 pastor of the hills was left to work out once 
 more his quiet but far-reaching mission in peace. 
 Little by little his illustration of the " cleaning 
 up" was justified, and the political changes on 
 the whole proved to be for the betterment of the 
 people. Nevertheless, in the disappointment of 
 his political expectations he felt more deeply than 
 ever that revolutions can effect but little good 
 unless the individuals who make up the nation 
 themselves become good. He said: "People 
 babble about liberty who are in the worst slavery 
 to their passions and selfish desires. The most 
 untakable Bastile is that which towers in our 
 hearts." 
 
 134 
 
IX 
 
 SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
IX 
 
 SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 (1795-1826) 
 
 FROM 1789 to 1795 the experiences of 
 Oberlin had not only marked him as a 
 bold leader, but had as well brought his 
 name and work among the mountain peasantry 
 into more extended recognition. Attention was 
 particularly directed to him from the fact that 
 he had remained in his harassed district, stand- 
 ing by his parishes when others far less exposed 
 to danger had fled over the borders into Ger- 
 many; that he had continued his unique leader- 
 ship and practically much of his preaching when 
 church services were interdicted; that he had 
 twice braved the political courts which had tried 
 him, and that finally he had been arrested for 
 a third trial. This wider knowledge of his quali- 
 ties led to renewed overtures for him to leave 
 his laborious cares in the hills and take charge 
 of a church where cultured life would bring with 
 
 137 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 it superior advantages, greater recognized honor, 
 and a satisfactory salary. His answer was the 
 same to all : " No, I will never leave this place. 
 It took me ten years to learn every head in this 
 parish, making an inventory of the moral, intel- 
 lectual, and domestic wants of each. 1 I have 
 laid my 'plans for the future. I must have at 
 least ten years to carry these into execution, and 
 I shall need the ten following to correct their 
 faults and vices. God has confided this flock to 
 me. Why should I abandon it? " Thus, at the 
 age of fifty-six, with his powers matured and 
 in full strength, Oberlin renewed his devotion, 
 laboring with the same earnest spirit, in the 
 same forms, personally attending to the daily 
 details in the material and religious interests of 
 the villages. 
 
 His prophetic genius was not exhausted in 
 anticipating many of the modern theories of 
 both primary and secondary education and their 
 methods, the combination of manual and indus- 
 trial instruction, the scientific study of agricul- 
 
 1 The book of records may still be seen in the parish house in 
 Waldersbach. In it Pastor Oberlin kept an exact and careful state- 
 ment of the ancestry, hereditary tendencies, characteristics, and 
 deeds of every member of the five villages under his pastoral care. 
 No necessary detail was insignificant to him. The interests which 
 belonged to the whole, belonged to every part. 
 
 138 
 
SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
 ture with lectures and practical experiments, 
 but as if it were by intuition he enunciated the 
 principles which enter into the sociological ques- 
 tions of to-day. 
 
 The churches of his time, narrow in their 
 ideas, were consequently restricted in their 
 sympathies and in their schemes for the sal- 
 vation of man, and were chiefly treating men 
 individually as souls that needed to be saved 
 and safeguarded; there was little apprehension 
 of the obligations and relationships of people 
 collectively. 
 
 Oberlin realized, as no other teachers appear 
 to have done in that day, that we must deal with 
 environment as well as with heredity, and that 
 it is well-nigh impossible to save individuals if 
 we neglect them in their community conditions. 
 He saw as clearly then as we do now that there 
 is more in the interdependent relations of organ- 
 ized society than the units which compose it; 
 that missionary work cannot regard man as an 
 individual only, but must have a care for him 
 also in his relations to other men, to human life 
 in its social conditions ; and that in dealing with 
 these facts we must reckon not only with the 
 influences of hereditary tendencies and with the 
 history of the past into the consequences of which 
 
 139 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 people have entered but also with the environ- 
 ments and capabilities of the present; with all 
 and with everything that enters into character 
 and goes to determine character and conduct. 
 Oberlin was a full century in advance of his day 
 in this realization of the fact that souls are people 
 in their relations to each other and to the whole 
 body of which they are members, and that the 
 gospel can mean relatively but little to a people 
 who by the state of things about them are merely 
 existing; that the human soul cannot be ade- 
 quately considered apart from its food, its home, 
 its work, and its wages. The practical social 
 problems which interest the present generation 
 were not only in Oberlin's mind, but in his lim- 
 ited sphere he worked them out, applying the 
 ethics of Christianity as we now understand them. 
 He was teaching social regeneration when he was 
 teaching the people how to live and how all 
 people everywhere ought to live. In this instruc- 
 tion also he made his own home a practical social 
 settlement, free to all and always open for illus- 
 tration and example. One of the rules of his 
 ' Village Improvement Society," another socio- 
 logical prophecy, was that " no lad should be 
 received for confirmation without a certificate 
 from his parents that he had planted and cared 
 
 140 
 
SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
 for two fruit trees in a suitable and designated 
 place.* 
 
 Oberlin's alertness in welcoming whatever con- 
 tributed to the public good is evinced in the fact 
 that in the very year of the formation of the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1804, he 
 became its first correspondent and one of its 
 most earnest coadjutors. As soon as he heard 
 of its incorporation he immediately organized a 
 little " Auxiliary Bible Society " in his own home, 
 and the parsonage at Waldbach became the 
 principal center of the distribution of the Scrip- 
 tures throughout France. Through his son, 
 Henry, who had much of the genius and de- 
 votion of his father, Oberlin, from this little 
 mountain depot, undertook the work of Bible dis- 
 tribution in various provinces of the nation. 
 
 The fourteenth report of the British and For- 
 eign Bible Society thus refers to this son, his 
 work, and his untimely death : " Your committee 
 think it due to the late Rev. Henry Oberlin of 
 Waldbach, in Alsatia, to bear testimony to the 
 zeal by which he was urged to sacrifice his valu- 
 able life in exertions for distributing the Holy 
 Scriptures among his countrymen. The imme- 
 diate occasion of the death of this young man 
 was a cold which he caught in 1815, while as- 
 
 141 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 sisting to extinguish a fire which had broken out 
 in a town in his route, as he was making his 
 circuit through the south of France to ascertain 
 the condition of the Protestants and the means 
 of supplying them with the Holy Scriptures." 
 
 Through the prominence into which Oberlin 
 and his work in Alsatia were brought by the 
 exciting events of the Revolution, he had been 
 nominated before the fall of Napoleon to receive 
 the medal of the " Legion of Honor." Later 
 this distinction was conferred upon him by the 
 royal ordinance of Louis XVIII " for services 
 which he has rendered in his pastorate during 
 fifty-three years, employing constant efforts for 
 the amelioration of the people, for zeal in the 
 establishment of schools and their methods of 
 instruction, and the many branches of industry 
 and advancement in agriculture and the improve- 
 ment of roads, which have made that district 
 flourishing and happy." 
 
 To those who complimented him on the re- 
 ception of this honor he modestly replied : " The 
 king has the kindness to send me the decoration 
 of the ' Legion of Honor/ But what have I 
 done to deserve it? Who in my situation would 
 not have done what I have, and perhaps better? " 
 
 In 1818 a report read by Count de Neuf- 
 142 
 
SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
 chateau before the National Agricultural Society 
 of Paris, setting forth at length the improve- 
 ments in agriculture introduced by Oberlin, con- 
 cluded in these words : "I am happy in being 
 able to manifest before you the attachment and 
 interest I have for the department of the Vosges, 
 in giving you so excellent an opportunity to 
 crown in the person of Mr. Oberlin not merely 
 a special act, but an entire life consecrated to 
 the dissemination, in a district before his arrival 
 there almost savage, of the best methods of agri- 
 culture and the purest lights of civilization. We 
 shall record it in the Memoirs of the Society as 
 an admirable example of what the influence of 
 an enlightened man can effect for the welfare 
 of an entire region. What an instructive and 
 interesting history is that of the prodigies ac- 
 complished in silence in this almost unknown 
 corner of the Vosges! How delightful it is for 
 us to know that France possesses in its bosom 
 such a miracle of virtue! How consoling it is 
 to think that this is not a dream of philanthropy, 
 but that these are positive facts, and that im- 
 agination can add nothing to reality ! " As a 
 token of its appreciation a gold medal was de- 
 creed to him and conveyed with every mark of 
 honor. 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 The emperor, Alexander of Russia, added his 
 highest appreciation of Oberlin's character. An 
 officer in the imperial service who had been one 
 of Oberlin's pupils in Strasburg, on asking leave 
 of absence to visit his old tutor at Waldbach, 
 received from the czar this gracious message: 
 " Pastor Oberlin is not unknown to me. I know 
 him to be a true minister of the Lord. Tell him 
 I love him and revere him." The officer deliv- 
 ered this message, and on taking leave of his 
 old tutor, Oberlin kissed his hand, saying, " Give 
 that to the emperor, and assure him of my re- 
 spect and of my desire that the divine will may 
 be fulfilled in him." 
 
 The officer reporting this to the emperor said, 
 " Sire, I have a sacred duty to fulfil in offering 
 you the homage of Pastor Oberlin," and at- 
 tempted to kiss his Majesty's hand. The em- 
 peror drew it back, saying, " You know I allow 
 no one to kiss my hand, least of all a preacher 
 of the gospel ! " The officer replied, " But I can- 
 not retain on my hand the impress of the lips 
 of Father Oberlin sent to your Majesty; " where- 
 upon the emperor embraced the bearer of the 
 message and said, " That is for Father Oberlin." 
 This occurred at Riga in 1819. 
 
 These late honors for Oberlin was now 
 144 
 
SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
 eighty years of age could not have been other 
 than pleasing to him, but certainly it would have 
 overwhelmed him to know that after a century 
 and more had intervened his name would be 
 perpetuated anew in one of its most beauti- 
 ful modern avenues in his native city the 
 city of Goethe and of Gutenberg as one of 
 its most notable sons, while the then popular 
 ministers of the rich churches of his day are 
 forgotten. 
 
 We have seen that Oberlin had faith in dreams, 
 but the strangest one which could come to him 
 would have been that his name would wing its 
 way from the remote mountain tops across the 
 continent of Europe, span the wide sea into the 
 new world which he had once hoped to enter, 
 and inscribe itself upon one of the most poten- 
 tial of America's institutions of higher learning, 
 so many of whose sons, in sympathy with his 
 ideas of brotherhood, its obligations and its 
 needs, seem to have caught his spirit of noble 
 service, and thus to give the college which bears 
 his name its special distinction. 
 
 It seemed to those who sought to secure the 
 services of Oberlin in a larger sphere that he 
 should have listened to some of their attract- 
 ive calls when they came to him in the prime 
 
 145 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 of his power and attainments. Though he could 
 not realize what far-away results might flow 
 from his fidelity to the trust he had in hand upon 
 the isolated hills, he did not feel that his in- 
 fluence would be greater if he were preaching 
 in a more conspicuous pulpit and to a people less 
 dependent upon his personal power. He was not 
 one of those who are ever looking for better 
 occasions or larger opportunities. What Oberlin 
 did emphasize was supreme fidelity to the trusts 
 he had. He was sure he had been called of God 
 to minister where he was. He was not sure 
 that the call to leave was of the same voice. 
 Until he had this assurance he would be as im- 
 movable as the hills about him. In this his con- 
 science was right and his judgment was wise. 
 His fidelity is saying to many a self-denying 
 minister to-day that wisdom will not judge 
 the magnitude of a work by outward appear- 
 ance. No one can tell where or how far his 
 influence may go, though his work be ever so 
 lowly. 
 
 The time came at last when age asserted itself, 
 and, when no longer able to minister to his 
 scattered parishes, his son-in-law came to Wald- 
 bach as his assistant; but the resolute man 
 had no thought of yielding to old age except 
 
 146 
 
SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
 upon compulsion. He would say to his young 
 people about him: "Don't grow old. Don't do 
 it! You see what has become of the active 
 Fritz. Why, he can hardly drag himself along! 
 Don't grow old" and he would add "but 
 do not think, my dears, that' I murmur at 
 this. Oh! the good God is wiser than old 
 Fritz." 
 
 He never lost his sympathy with youth, but 
 retained his cheerfulness, his hilarity, his merry 
 smile and upright figure as long as he lived. 
 " Even to his last days," says his daughter, 
 Madame Rauscher, " he could show young men 
 how soldiers march : ' Form in line. Left foot 
 first. March ! Right about/ and so on, drilling 
 them with evident pleasure." When after four- 
 score years of age it became impossible for him 
 to visit the people of his parishes, he kept his 
 printing-press busy with his circulars and mes- 
 sages, setting up the type and working the press 
 with his own hands. Often when inclined to 
 rest, his daughter would overhear him chiding 
 himself for his unwelcome fatigue : " Ah ! Fritz, 
 idling are you ? What does this mean ? " upon 
 which he would rouse himself for the work which 
 was engaging him. He kept the parish register 
 before him daily, and, as he would read the 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 names one by one, would pray for them as if 
 they were indeed his children. The time came 
 at last for which this highly gifted and devoted 
 servant of God had waited in earnest expecta- 
 tion of his more complete heirship with the 
 Master who had won his youthful heart and who 
 had been his strength and joy through all the 
 years. On the first day of June, 1826, when the 
 hills were waking into the glory of the season, 
 the soul of Oberlin passed into the new and larger 
 life. The tolling of the church bell at Waldbach 
 announced to the stricken people of his parishes 
 that they had lost the presence and service of 
 their greatest earthly friend. 
 
 At his funeral people gathered from far to 
 testify to their love and their sense of loss. 
 Magistrates and ministers from neighboring 
 communities and several Catholic priests in full 
 canonicals were mourning at his grave. A final 
 farewell which Oberlin himself had written was 
 read : " Thou, O ever dear Parish, God will not 
 forget you, nor abandon you. He has thoughts 
 of peace and mercy for you. Oh ! that you might 
 forget my name to remember only that of Jesus 
 Christ whom I have preached. He it is who is 
 your pastor. Good-bye, dear friends, I have 
 loved you much. ' O my God, may thine eye 
 
 148 
 
SUCCEEDING YEARS 
 
 ever watch over my dear parishioners, thine ear 
 be ever open to hear them, and thy hand be ever 
 stretched out to protect them. I commend them 
 to thee, and put them in thy arms. Send them 
 pastors after thine own heart and never leave 
 them/ " 
 
 149 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHAR- 
 ACTERISTICS 
 
X 
 
 PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 THE attainments which Oberlin laid in his 
 generous course of university studies 
 proved to be a constant investment for 
 usefulness in his pastorate. He retained to old 
 age his scholarly tastes and habits. In a certain 
 degree of the term, Oberlin was a scholar. The 
 diversity of his knowledge, however, is to be re- 
 marked, rather than any special mastership in 
 particular lines. Intellectual, loving the natural 
 sciences, history, and literature, he devoted every 
 hour to study which was not demanded by parisH 
 duties or absorbed by his family. Much of his 
 attention was given to the physical sciences and 
 their application and uses. He was fond of 
 mathematics. He had no special inclination to 
 metaphysics, but he kept himself in his reading 
 alert to the philosophies of his day. 
 
 As a preacher in the examination of his texts, 
 he invariably went to the original tongues, which 
 
 153 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 were his best commentaries. When some one 
 inquired of him as to his intellectual preferences, 
 with his characteristic modesty he replied, " Je 
 sais un peu de tout, et en tout rien," or as he 
 once wrote it in Latin, " In omnibus aliquid, et 
 in toto nihil." Certainly a life like his forbade 
 scholarship. 
 
 His writings, mostly local and ephemeral, were 
 such as would naturally be struck off in a min- 
 istry like his. While his sermons were for the 
 most part written, they were adapted to the 
 limited education and conditions of his peasant 
 people. At the same time they show no lack of 
 respect for the ability on their part to receive 
 vigorous thought. Many of the sermons have 
 marks of the originality which was indicated 
 in many ways in his methods of developing 
 the people of the district. In his preaching he 
 studied colloquial plainness, interspersing his 
 teachings with illustrations from every-day life, 
 which might seem too familiar had they been 
 addressed to a more cultivated audience. In 
 general he committed the full text of the dis- 
 course scrupulously to memory. 
 
 He was wont to say that he was " deficient in 
 memory," but certainly he was not lacking in 
 that mentality which is the foundation of all 
 
 154 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 intellectual operations. He was not one of those 
 whose acquisitive powers through a mechanical 
 memory are remarkable but who never know 
 what to do with what has been acquired. Think- 
 ing out his conclusions in his own way, he did 
 not burden himself with the forms of others. 
 
 The dominant tone of his discourses was per- 
 suasive and tender. This is especially to be noted, 
 as he was living in the days when " the terrors 
 of the Lord" were common in religious dis- 
 course. When, for example, Jonathan Edwards 
 in this country was preaching his terrific sermon 
 upon the " sinner in the hands of an angry God," 
 Oberlin, who was no philosopher like Edwards, 
 showed his prophetic nature in anticipating the 
 thought and feeling of Christians a hundred years 
 later in the emphasis which he placed on God's 
 own definition of himself. As the love of God 
 was the inspiration of his life, so it was the cen- 
 tral thought in his preaching, and he does not 
 appear to have changed the theological sentiments 
 of his earlier years in this respect in his later 
 experience. 
 
 At the death of his father, after Oberlin had 
 been three years a pastor, his old professor, 
 Lorenz, said to him : " My dear Oberlin, your 
 father's death must pain you greatly all the 
 
 155 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 more, although he was a perfectly honest man 
 since there is no hope that the gates of heaven 
 will open for him; for he was not among those 
 who had been regenerated." 
 
 Oberlin at once replied with much warmth, 
 " Mr. Professor, I feel very easy as to that, for 
 I am as sure that my excellent father is in heaven 
 as I am that God has promised to all who be- 
 lieve in him that he would hear their prayer." 
 Stuber, with whom Madame Rauscher, Ober- 
 lin's daughter, collaborated in writing his biog- 
 raphy, adds, " The dogma of eternal pain could 
 never have been received by the loving soul of 
 Oberlin." When this doctrine was once pro- 
 posed in his presence, as related by an intimate 
 friend, he rejected it emphatically, saying, " If 
 God would eternally damn one of his creatures, 
 he would cease to be God. He would become 
 a devil." (" Si Dieu pouvait damner eternelle- 
 ment une de ses creatures, il cesserait d'etre 
 Dieu; il devienderait diable.") It should be 
 noted, however, that we have no writing of 
 Oberlin's to confirm this. 
 
 At the same time his discourses show that no 
 loose views were entertained by him as to the 
 nature and certainty of retribution. Numerous 
 passages in them speak of the inevitable penal- 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 ties of sin and the fearful retributions in a future 
 life for those who remain unreconciled to God. 
 He knew that the fruitage of sin is not the same 
 as that of righteousness. He thoroughly believed 
 " in the judgment to come." 
 
 Akin to his sense of the love and grace of 
 God was his remarkable catholicity. Stuber calls 
 it " tolerance," but Oberlin had gone quite be- 
 yond tolerating those whose opinions he could 
 not accept. Ardent in defending his own con- 
 victions and in presenting them to others, he was 
 great enough to hold fraternal relations with 
 those whose faith was not expressed in his terms 
 and whose education had led them to different 
 views. 
 
 It was natural at that period for Roman Catho- 
 lics and Protestants to maintain their differences 
 with much hostility. Their conflicts were recent; 
 their enmities were not concealed. Here again 
 the prophet anticipated " a more excellent way." 
 An illustration of this was when a young woman 
 of Schirmeck, a neighboring village, who was a 
 Roman Catholic, had married a Protestant of his 
 own parish. This relationship was exceptional 
 and aroused the animosity of the young husband's 
 relatives, especially because by marriage agree- 
 ment the children were to be brought up in the 
 
 157 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 religion of the mother. The time came when a 
 little daughter was to be baptized by the Roman 
 Catholic priest of Schirmeck. The parents were 
 to take the road over the mountain for this pur- 
 pose, but the enemies of the young husband de- 
 termined to prevent this baptism and made plans 
 to waylay* the couple at a particular point in the 
 road, where by intimidation and violence, if neces- 
 sary, they would compel them to return. The 
 young parents heard of this as they were start- 
 ing out, and in their trouble went to Oberlin for 
 counsel. He immediately offered to accompany 
 them for protection. On arriving at the spot in 
 the forest where the parties had arranged an 
 ambuscade, Oberlin knelt down, and extending 
 his hands over the young people exclaimed: 
 " Great God, thou who seest wickedness lying 
 in wait and plotting mischief; thou seest inno- 
 cence in alarm. Avert the danger, or give thy 
 children strength to meet it." At this moment 
 several men who had concealed themselves in a 
 thicket rushed forward with threatening shouts, 
 but Oberlin, taking the infant in his arms, ad- 
 vanced with coolness which did not conceal his 
 indignation, saying, " Here is the infant which 
 has done you so much injury, which disturbs the 
 peace of your days," and with this little text of 
 
 158 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 a baby in his arms he showed them the wicked- 
 ness of their design in such a way that they 
 realized it for themselves, and begged pardon 
 both of their pastor and the young man. In the 
 forest Oberlin led them to a reconciliation, sent 
 the married couple to the priest at Schirmeck, 
 and returned with the men who had been sur- 
 prised by him to the village. When they reached 
 it he said, " My children, remember this day on 
 the mountain if you wish that I should forget it." 
 
 To a Roman Catholic who expressed his re- 
 gret that they were not of the same religion, his 
 reply was : " If you are a Christian, my dear 
 friend, we are of the same religion. Let us fol- 
 low the law given by the Saviour ; it is the only 
 true law; the forms and ceremonies added by 
 different sects are of little importance/' 
 
 The Catholic prefect of Strasburg was one of 
 his intimate friends. Stoeber says : " They would 
 converse on sacred subjects far into the night, 
 and often the good prefect left Oberlin's study 
 with tears in his eyes, so powerfully had the con- 
 ference affected him." A Catholic gentleman, 
 M. Merlin, asked Oberlin if he believed that 
 heathen who lived in charity were saved. "I 
 have no doubt of it." " You do not believe, then, 
 that Socrates, for example, is doomed to eternal 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 misery?" "What!" exclaimed Oberlin with 
 warmth, " that good man ! No. I believe he 
 has a seat very near the throne of God." Meet- 
 ing, one day, a Catholic citizen who told him that 
 he had heard of his preaching against the Catho- 
 lic religion, Oberlin opened his Bible, and turning 
 to the epistles of Peter, James, and John, said, 
 " You see these Catholic Epistles are read by all 
 our people; how can I preach against a religion 
 that is Catholic?" 
 
 Surrounded by a mixed population of Catholics 
 and Protestants, he felt that if he bore the name 
 of " Evangelical Catholic " it would represent the 
 fact, and was less likely to prevent his influence 
 than to be designated by the narrower name of 
 " Protestant." " Our faith is not in Luther, but 
 in Jesus Christ." 
 
 A portrait of Luther hung in his study. To 
 a visitor whose attention was drawn to it he said: 
 " Luther was not the founder of a new religion ; 
 he only brought us back to the religion of Jesus 
 Christ. God will regard all who adhere to the 
 doctrines of his divine Son, be they Catholics or 
 Lutherans." 
 
 A document was found among his papers con- 
 taining a full statement of the " circumstances 
 which determined me to call myself Evangelical 
 
 1 60 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Catholic minister, rather than a minister of the 
 Protestant religion," in which he says : " A young 
 Catholic priest has told some one that if the other 
 ministers called Protestants were as truly Catho- 
 lic as the minister of Waldbach, he would not 
 hesitate to place himself on their side. Thus the 
 hatred and repugnance that so long caused us 
 sorrows of every kind have 'little by little given 
 place to brotherly love, and our doctrines are seen 
 to be those of the true Catholic Church; that is 
 to say, Christian ! " As a fact, Oberlin did suc- 
 ceed in reducing the antipathy between Protes- 
 tants and Catholics throughout his district, and 
 came to be venerated by both priests and people. 
 
 He administered the sacraments to Catholics, 
 Lutherans, and Calvinists at the same time, and 
 because they would not eat the same bread, he 
 had on a plate bread of different kinds, wafers, 
 leavened and unleavened. 
 
 It was a little meeting-house where this oc- 
 curred, but it was large enough to welcome John 
 Calvin, John Wesley, Luther, and Fenelon to the 
 communion table had they appeared, and to place 
 them in the same fellowship which they doubt- 
 less now enjoy. 
 
 Nevertheless, he faithfully defended his own 
 position : " As to the terms Schismatics and Here- 
 161 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 tics, judge ye for yourselves which merits re- 
 proach, we who practise what is contained in 
 the Catholic Epistles and the Gospels, or those 
 who will not allow these Scriptures in the hands 
 of their parishioners." 
 
 The conversation between an English traveler 
 who visited Waldbach and the driver of his car- 
 riage is given in an English memoir: 
 
 " You go to see our good pastor, Oberlin ? " said 
 the driver. 
 
 " Yes. Do you know him ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know him very well. I often go to 
 hear him preach." 
 
 " But you are a Catholic, are you not ? " 
 
 " Yes, we are all Catholics at Schirmeck, but that 
 does not prevent us from going to hear the good pastor 
 at Waldbach." 
 
 " Do you like his preaching? " 
 
 " Indeed I do ! He often brings tears to our eyes. 
 He is a man who tries to serve us in all possible 
 ways." 
 
 " Tell me what he has done." 
 
 " Done ! Everything that could be done. There 
 are so many things! Let me see; first, he made this 
 road for us." 
 
 " That is not much to boast of." 
 
 " That may be, but look you, sir, not many years 
 ago we could not pass here even with a little carriage 
 like this. The pastor planned all this road and worked 
 
 162 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 on it himself to encourage others, and that little bridge 
 we are coming to, he made that also." 
 
 " He must be rich to do so many things ! " 
 
 " You may say he is rich, but he is not rich." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " If he kept all he gives away he would be rich, but 
 he keeps nothing for himself; he gives away every- 
 thing. You will see his house. You will not find it a 
 palace." 
 
 Another incident is characteristic of his broad 
 sympathies. One day while working in his study 
 he heard a great noise in the village. 
 
 Looking out where the tumult was, he saw a 
 stranger, who proved to be a Jewish pedler whom 
 almost the whole population was loading with 
 threats and abuse. Oberlin made his way at 
 once through the mob while every one was cry- 
 ing, "A Jew! A Jew!" 
 
 Putting himself beside the persecuted man and 
 making himself heard, he reproached the people 
 as not worthy of the name of Christians who 
 could persecute a poor man for not being one; 
 then, placing the package of goods upon his own 
 shoulders and taking the man by the hand, he 
 led him into the parsonage away from their in- 
 sults and made him his guest. 
 
 No one could abhor the teachings of Rousseau 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 or Voltaire with more intensity than Oberlin, but 
 on a certain occasion, when he had been speaking 
 vehemently of them, his friend Stoeber ventured 
 to say that Rousseau had denounced certain sins 
 against the family on the part of French women 
 and that Voltaire had defended victims of 
 oppression and cruelty. Oberlin's expression 
 changed instantly, and his comment was, " Ah ! 
 les chers ! " He did not think any better of their 
 doctrines, but he could appreciate whatever was 
 good in their conduct. 
 
 His tendency to abstract and speculative re- 
 searches found a fine balance in an uncommon, 
 practical cast of mind. While his thoughts per- 
 petually traveled towards the unseen and sought 
 to get beyond the barriers which separate the 
 other world from this one, he never slackened 
 his hold of the details of daily interest or duty. 
 While he persuaded himself of the certainty of 
 continued influence on the part of the spirits of 
 the departed upon their loved ones on earth, his 
 mind lost no attentiveness to the passing events 
 of his little hamlets, nor yet to those of the wider 
 world. He used frequently to speak of the con- 
 scious and uninterrupted affection of his deceased 
 wife toward him, and was sure that in his dreams 
 and visions of the night she advised him, en- 
 
 164 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 couraged him in his work, and gave him most 
 positive assurance of the interest of the other 
 world in this one. 
 
 When asked how he could distinguish these 
 visions and tidings from ordinary dreams, his 
 reply was, " How do you distinguish one color 
 from another ? " His manuscript books abound 
 in details of these dreams which he interpreted. 
 Naturally his mind inclined to clairvoyance, and 
 he took great pleasure in the phenomena of what 
 was then called " animal magnetism." He be- 
 came a great friend of his contemporary, the 
 Swiss mystic, Lavater, was in frequent and 
 familiar correspondence with him, and sympa- 
 thized with many of his eccentric views of physi- 
 ognomy as a science. 
 
 He thought that he could judge the character 
 from the features, and even from the mere out- 
 line, from the profile silhouettes, which were then 
 common. He made in this study a large collec- 
 tion of profiles and taught the children in their 
 drawing classes to make them. He also believed 
 that he could detect qualities good or bad from 
 the preference in colors. 
 
 We are not surprised to find that his interest 
 in the reality of the communion which he him- 
 self had with his departed wife led him to the 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 study of Swedenborg's works, which had been 
 recommended to him by his friend, the German 
 mystic and author, Dr. Jung Stilling, an intimate 
 friend also of Goethe. He certainly found much 
 of suggestiveness in the analogies of Sweden- 
 borg and in the correspondences between natural 
 and spiritual things. A chart or celestial dia- 
 gram of Solomon's Temple as representing the 
 kingdom of heaven is still to be seen in the Wald- 
 bach parsonage, in which he endeavored to make 
 clear the fact that the future life would depend 
 upon the character formed in the life of the body, 
 the innermost mansions of the temple being of 
 those who had been most devoted to the service 
 of others. His biographer, Stoeber, remarks upon 
 Oberlin's belief in the influence of spirits on 
 earthly life, saying : " We are far from wishing 
 to favor superstition, but to say a thing is not 
 because we ourselves have not known it ; to deny 
 what another has seen himself because we our- 
 selves have not seen it; to deny what another 
 has seen and felt because we have not seen or 
 felt as he has this does not seem sound reason- 
 ing." However we may regard these fancies, 
 if we choose to call them such, of this uncommon 
 man, in everything that had to do with earthly 
 life there was no lack of sound, hard, practical 
 
 1 66 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 common sense. His heavenly visions in no way 
 injured his earthly eyesight. His eccentricities, 
 if they are so judged, were all on the side of 
 righteousness ; and for the comfort of those who 
 may think that his spirit of liberality was carried 
 to a great length, it may be said that his dis- 
 courses give no hint of eccentricities and show 
 him to have been as evangelical as the New 
 Testament. His standing as a Lutheran pastor 
 was never questioned. 
 
 By the side of this characteristic, loving qual- 
 ity was his keen sense of justice, which is par- 
 ticularly marked by his course in the treatment 
 of the French assignats. The heavy expenses of 
 the revolutionary government had been met by 
 the issue of a small paper currency called assig- 
 nats, which from the vast amount and doubtful 
 security came to be passed for much less than 
 their nominal value. Oberlin felt that the nation 
 was dishonest in not keeping its promises, and that 
 the scaling down of the notes was, in so far, a 
 personal repudiation. He prepared a circular in 
 opposition to this depreciation, saying: "These 
 notes are obligations of the nation to which it 
 has pledged its faith; to receive them at less 
 than their face value is to assail the good faith 
 of the nation, and true patriots will not allow 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 themselves to be accomplices in this depreciation." 
 He proved his consistency by receiving, in his 
 parishes, the notes to their full value, and recom- 
 mended that every one who held one of them 
 should submit to a discount of two per cent and 
 indorse this on paper in each transaction, so that 
 in time the note would be canceled and the debt 
 discharged. Among his own papers was found 
 one of these notes indorsed in his handwriting, 
 " Thus, thanks to God, my country is honestly 
 released from this obligation." He bought up 
 all the assignats which had been brought into 
 the Ban-de-la-Roche and made the depreciation 
 good. A comment has been made upon this which 
 styles it " a freak of conscience and a curious 
 exhibition of patriotism," but the protest against 
 dishonor in behalf of individual responsibility of 
 the citizens was not lost. This sense of patriotic 
 justice, however quixotic it seemed to many, was 
 recognized in the minutes of the national con- 
 vention of France in its " Sixteenth Fructidor " 
 and placed upon its records. During twenty years 
 he succeeded in canceling no less a sum than 
 78,625 francs, and this in one of the poorest dis- 
 tricts of the nation. 
 
 This sensitive ethical sense revealed itself also 
 in his testimony against human slavery. He 
 
 1 68 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 would not use sugar in his household, " for every 
 granule of it is tainted with the blood of the 
 unhappy slave." He would not use coffee; no 
 article wrung out of involuntary servitude would 
 he touch. The substitute was roasted barley, 
 which was sweetened with honey. This protest 
 against a public iniquity has likewise been criti- 
 cized as a useless exhibition of a mistaken con- 
 science, in that whatever one man might do on 
 the mountains an ocean and a half continent 
 away from slavery could not affect the question 
 either way. It was not, however, useless testi- 
 mony. At a time when devoted ministers of the 
 gospel in our own land were diligently estab- 
 lishing the divine foundations of the institution 
 of slavery by the Scriptures, he was manufac- 
 turing moral ozone for the convictions of a people 
 not yet born, which got wafted across the sea 
 in due season without losing its strength. 
 
 We do not know how he applied his ethics so 
 that the same ostracism, with a refreshing incon- 
 sistency, failed to include tobacco. The snuff- 
 box, which was a great comfort to him, had a 
 special dispensation. When, however, his regard 
 for it became overmasterful, the good man re- 
 belled, with a harangue which it is to be feared 
 had frequent repetition : " Ah, you wish to com- 
 
 169 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 mand me, to make me a slave! I will show 
 you which of us is master and which is to obey. 
 Go to prison, my lady," upon which he locked 
 up and banished to a different floor his too- 
 assertive friend, thus making necessary a special 
 trip with much inconvenience when the desire 
 became urgent. 
 
 One of the happiest days of his life was when 
 he had succeeded in putting an end to a litigation 
 carried on between the inhabitants of Ban-de-la- 
 Roche and the former lords of the district with 
 regard to the right of the forest which covered 
 a great part of the mountains. The contest began 
 before the French Revolution and had survived 
 it. Oberlin took every opportunity to induce the 
 people to consent to an amicable arrangement, 
 even at the expense of a voluntary sacrifice on 
 their part of some of their rights, rather than 
 prolong a lawsuit which would be ruinous even 
 should they finally get the case. During many 
 years he had a motto affixed to one of the doors, 
 " O God, have mercy on Steinthal and put an 
 end to the lawsuit." 
 
 Sermon followed sermon on the " Duty of 
 Peace" with the purpose to secure the consent 
 of the people to a compromise, no easy matter 
 to effect with either party. An agreement was 
 
 170 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 at last brought about which closed the disputes 
 of more than three-quarters of a century. The 
 prefect of the lower Rhine was so gratified at 
 the result that he suggested to the mayors in 
 deputation when the deed was signed, " The pen 
 used should be presented to the pastor, to be 
 suspended in his study as a trophy of a victory 
 which he had gained over animosities and bad 
 passions." 
 
 Oberlin's conscience went into the minutest 
 details of life. Excessively scrupulous as to the 
 employment of time, he held himself to strictest 
 punctuality in every engagement. He felt it to 
 be an almost unpardonable transgression for one 
 to demand that he should use his time profitlessly, 
 and he carried this so far as to condemn careless 
 handwriting. " What right has a correspondent 
 to use my time by compelling me to study out 
 what should be plain ? " He considered that if it 
 was a lack of respect for one to present himself 
 to another in a negligent or shiftless form, much 
 more should the clothing of one's mind be seemly 
 in appearance. What he required of others he 
 required of himself. 
 
 Not a blot is to be found on his many manu- 
 scripts; every word is distinct, clear, neat, and 
 legible. Each noun was written with a capi- 
 
 171 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 tal letter, and each word without abbreviation 
 had its full value. If this extreme care is to be 
 counted among his eccentricities, it was like most 
 other marks of his peculiar personality one 
 which it might be useful for many of us to 
 imitate. 
 
 In his old age, as his name had become more 
 widely known, the natural curiosity of those who 
 were interested in him and in his work found 
 expression in their letters to him. To one who 
 in 1820 asked for his profile and for something 
 about himself, he cut one and wrote the follow- 
 ing description of his character: 
 
 I am a strange compound of contradictory quali- 
 ties. I do not exactly know what I am to make of 
 myself. I am intelligent, and yet I am possessed of 
 very limited powers. I am more given to tact and 
 prudence than most of my colleagues, and yet I am 
 very apt to blunder. I am firm and decided, but I can 
 yield to others without trouble. I think myself daring 
 and actually courageous in necessity, but at the same 
 time I am perhaps secretly a coward. I am very frank, 
 but also complaisant to men, therefore not absolutely 
 sincere. I am both French and German, disposed to 
 be noble, generous, obliging, faithful, grateful, and 
 affected by the least evidence of kindness, yet I am 
 indifferent and careless. 
 
 I am also extremely irritable. They who are kind 
 172 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 to me have much influence with me, but contradiction 
 makes me stubborn, especially in matters of conscience. 
 I have a vivid imagination but little memory, properly 
 speaking. The histories that I have taken pains to 
 impress on my mind remain with me, but dates and 
 names of persons I often forget the next day. I am 
 so sensitive that often I cannot express the feelings 
 which oppress me and, pain me. I am always busy 
 and industrious ; I also like indolence. I am generally 
 quick in resolving and equally so in executing. I 
 admire music, painting, and poetry, but have no gifts 
 in these arts. Mechanics and natural history are my 
 favorite studies. I am a devotee of regularity. I am 
 a soldier by instinct, but was more so in feeling before 
 my physical strength was weakened. I have always 
 striven to be first in danger and to be firm in pain. 
 The military discipline pleases me because it forces 
 the coward to show courage and the disorderly man to 
 be punctual. 
 
 I love humor and have a sarcastic turn of mind, but 
 without intentional ill feeling. Since my childhood 
 I have aspired to a life higher than that of the world." 
 
 In another paper, writing of his joy in restor- 
 ing one who in asphyxia was supposed to be dead, 
 he said : " I had need to use all my authority to 
 get myself obeyed. I pretended anger, I stamped 
 my foot, I shouted like a sailor, I scolded those 
 who stood weeping, I threatened to beat every- 
 body if they did not keep quiet and help me." 
 
 173 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 If the first person singular seems somewhat 
 glorified in these quotations, it may be said that in 
 this instance it was not the self-eulogy of a man 
 who could be accused of conceit; it was rather 
 where a man above eighty years of age, in a 
 confiding and ingenuous mood, looked at himself 
 and thought aloud what, if he had been an egoist, 
 he would not have said. Doubtless every parish- 
 ioner would have demurred at almost every ex- 
 pression of his demerits, and it is safe to say 
 that there was not one who knew him who did 
 not think more highly of the pastor than he did 
 himself. 
 
 During the time of the " Terror," Augustin 
 Perier, brother of the prime minister, Casimir 
 Perier, in his capacity of deputy, visited Ban-de- 
 la-Roche. In his diary he mentions Oberlin : " I 
 have never yet found a man with a more frank, 
 amiable, and friendly manner; his conversation 
 is easy, with much color and illustration, but 
 always suited to the person to whom he speaks." 
 
 An English writer who met him after he was 
 eighty years of age described him : " Oberlin is 
 a handsome man of medium height and remark- 
 ably dignified appearance. He wears a black hat 
 and a long frock-coat adorned with the ribbon 
 of ' The Legion of Honor/ His manner is grave 
 
 174 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 but extremely affectionate and gentlemanly. His 
 courtesy toward his parishioners is constantly 
 manifested; he never passes in front of them 
 without taking off his hat and saying a few affec- 
 tionate words. When he meets children, he takes 
 them by the hand and shows his good-will by 
 little thoughtful attentions." 
 
 Still another visitor adds : " Oberlin's personal 
 manners were admirable. Kind and familiar with 
 all his villagers, he preserved a dignity which 
 commanded respect, universal and filial. He was 
 careful to set an example which should not be 
 liable to misconstruction or appear to be opposed 
 to his precepts. In this, as in every other matter, 
 he was to the last degree scrupulous. On one 
 occasion, as together we were walking up a hill, 
 he had the arm of his son-in-law, whilst my wife 
 was walking by herself unattended. Fearing that 
 this might be considered . self-indulgent or dis- 
 respectful by some of his younger parishioners 
 whom he happened to pass (though he was then 
 in his eightieth year), he stopped to make apol- 
 ogy for his apparent disregard of the law of 
 civility. I happened one day, when we were 
 driven by a man who seemed to go in a hazard- 
 ous manner, to say, ' Take care ! ' The pastor 
 appeared hurt at this admonition, both on my 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 account and that of the driver. He assured me 
 that all was safe, and at the end of the drive took 
 the greatest pains to prevent any feeling which 
 might arise in the mind of his parishioner." 
 
 Madame de Berckheim, who knew him when 
 not so advanced in years, left her record as she 
 saw him : " A handsome figure ; his bearing erect ; 
 his eyes have an expression of marvelous insight. 
 In his conversation he shows a lively imagination. 
 He has the gift of repartee, the sudden brilliant 
 flashes of his mind which charm his entourage. 
 His speech is marked by an extraordinary per- 
 suasiveness in intonation and choice of expres- 
 sion. His way of saying things is unique. The 
 nobility of his soul shines in the spirituality of 
 his countenance." 
 
 A letter written by an English lady who visited 
 his home in 1820, spending some days at the par- 
 sonage, gives us an animated description of the 
 venerable pastor and his family: 
 
 ... a perfect picture of what an old man and a minis- 
 ter should be. He received us cordially, and we soon 
 felt quite at ease with him. I never knew so well what 
 the grace of courtesy was till I saw this remarkable man. 
 He treats the poorest people, and even the little chil- 
 dren, with affectionate respect. For instance, his kind- 
 ness and hospitality to our postilion were quite amus- 
 
 176 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 ing. He pulled his hat off when he met him, took 
 him by the hand and treated him with really tender 
 consideration. He is, I think, more than eighty, one 
 of the handsomest old men I ever remember to have 
 seen, still vigorous in mind and spirit, delighting in 
 his parish, full of fervent charity. He shakes hands 
 with the children when he meets them in the streets. 
 The effect which such treatment has had in polishing 
 these people, uncivilized as they formerly were, is 
 quite wonderful. The state of the schools, the chil- 
 dren and the poor in general, as much exceeds our 
 parish as ours does the most neglected. The meals 
 in his home are really amusing: We all sit down to 
 the same table, maids and all. At our supper was one 
 great dish of pottage, or boiled spinach ; a quantity of 
 salad and potatoes, on which they chiefly live, being 
 placed in the middle. The luxury of a common Eng- 
 lish cottage is not known in Ban-de-la-Roche. We 
 breakfast at seven the family upon potatoes boiled 
 with milk and water ; a little coffee is provided for us. 
 Everything is in the most primitive style. The poor 
 charm me. I have never met with any like them; so 
 much humility, spirituality, and with manners that 
 would do honor to a court. 
 
 The letter continues: 
 
 COLMAR, Friday Evening. 
 
 Our scene is again quite changed ; we have returned 
 to the common world; and now I find myself over a 
 comfortable fire at a good hotel which is quite a 
 
 177 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 luxury after the primitive fare of the Ban-de-la-Roche, 
 where we found but little indulgence for the body, 
 though we were treated with genuine hospitality. 
 
 It was indeed plain living and high thinking, 
 but these simple forms of life made the man's 
 achievements possible. 
 
 Perhaps nothing that pertains to the charac- 
 teristics of Oberlin is more illuminating than his 
 methods of benevolence. Engrossed as he was 
 in his plans for his own villagers, no sooner 
 had he heard that missionaries had gone to the 
 heathen in foreign lands, than he gave all the 
 silver in his house except one silver spoon, which 
 afterwards went in the same way. 
 
 To some one who desired to know how he could 
 be so poor and yet contribute, not only to the 
 necessities of his own fields, but also take in the 
 missionary work of foreign lands, he said: 
 
 You ask me for some explanation. I will tell you 
 how I manage: I devote three tithes of all I earn, all 
 that I receive, and all my revenue of whatever name 
 or nature it may be, to the service of God. For this 
 purpose I keep three boxes; the first for the first 
 tithe, the second for the second, and the third box for 
 the third. When I cannot pay ready money all at 
 once, I mark how much I owe upon a bit of paper 
 which I put into the box ; and when, on the contrary, 
 
 178 
 
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 a demand occurs which ought to be defrayed by one 
 of the three allotments, and there is not sufficient 
 money deposited, I advance the sum and make the box 
 my debtor by marking how much it owes me. By this 
 means I am always able to assist in any public or char- 
 itable undertaking, and as God has himself declared 
 that "it is more blessed to give than to receive," I 
 look upon this regular disbursement rather in the 
 light of a privilege than a burden. 
 
 The first of the above-mentioned boxes contains a 
 deposit for the worship of God. I devote the contents 
 of this box to the building and repairing of churches 
 and schoolrooms, the support of the teachers for the 
 infant schools, and the purchases of Bibles; in short, 
 to anything connected with divine worship or the 
 extension of our Redeemer's kingdom. 
 
 My parishioners are at liberty to recall from this 
 tithe any present that either generosity or the suppo- 
 sition that I expected it may have induced them to 
 make me. 
 
 The second box contains tithes for useful purposes. 
 I employ this for a variety of purposes for the im- 
 provement of roads to the churches and schools, for 
 the schoolmasters' salaries, for all works of public 
 utility, for expenses incurred among the peasantry of 
 the villages. 
 
 The third box contains tithes for the poor. I de- 
 vote the contents of this box to the service of the 
 poor, to the compensation for their losses, for 
 wood, flannel, bread, &c., for those who stand in 
 need. 
 
 179 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 He scrupulously adhered to this plan and often 
 said that by so doing he abounded " in wealth." 
 
 Thus faithful in little things as in large, in the 
 dedication of himself to his overmastering pur- 
 pose he gathered up his life and economies, his 
 studies, his gracious words, his unfailing prayers, 
 and his daily deeds into a unity of devotion to 
 his Lord and Master and to his fellow men. It 
 would have been a poor reward for the passionate 
 sacrifices of his threescore years in his earnest 
 devotion to others to have secured for himself a 
 little more of the common luxuries of life or to 
 have considered the comforts which appeal to most 
 men. His great purpose filled all his days with 
 a boundless joy, poor as he was in the world's 
 coin. The apostle who said, " This one thing I 
 do," never felt his longing desire for complete 
 consecration with deeper sincerity. 
 
 1 80 
 
XI 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
XI 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 IT would be a vain attempt to gather up the 
 influences of such a life, as that of Oberlin. 
 It is not left to us, however, to be entirely 
 ignorant of some of them. 
 
 The little villages to which he gave almost 
 threescore of his earnest years remain as wit- 
 nesses to the local permanence of his power after 
 the passing of more than a century. 
 
 It is an easy journey by railway from Stras- 
 burg to Rothau, the first of the outlying parishes 
 of the ancient Ban-de-la-Roche. It now numbers 
 eighteen hundred people, a large proportion of 
 whom are employed in four factories. One of 
 these factories, in which are six hundred opera- 
 tives making cotton goods, is under the manage- 
 ment of the great-grandson of Oberlin. An ex- 
 cellent public school building for a graded course 
 of instruction provides for the education of the 
 children and youth. A large Catholic church, 
 
 183 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 which stands in the center of the town, called 
 together on the Lord's Day a goodly congrega- 
 tion of devout worshipers at its services. A 
 Protestant church, commodious and tasteful, was 
 likewise filled with people of an average higher 
 class, and the service in the French language 
 was impressive. The discourse of the minister, 
 earnest and spiritual, was of a high order, both in 
 thought and expression, and was received with 
 appreciative attention. 
 
 Life for the most part in Rothau is lowly, but 
 is not lacking in comfort and opportunity for ad- 
 vancement where the qualities exist for achieve- 
 ment. Rothau, though quickened in its life by 
 Oberlin's opening to it the hill-country with good 
 roads, was not under his immediate ministra- 
 tions, and we shall come closer to him in the five 
 parishes of the mountains. 
 
 It was in the lovely August weather, when the 
 air was balmy with the fragrance of the pine and 
 the fir, that we rode among the hills and over 
 them, through valleys and meadows, with forget- 
 me-nots and bluebells nodding to us from the 
 roadsides, while the birds with their songs wel- 
 comed us along the way. Crossing the little 
 bridge, the "Pont de la Charite" of Oberlin's con- 
 struction, across the Bruche, we came to the very 
 
 184 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 ancient village of Fouday. It has quite a modern 
 appearance now, chiefly owing to the factory 
 which Oberlin introduced, and which is still pros- 
 pering. The church one of his charge re- 
 mains as he left it. In the churchyard is the 
 good pastor's grave, tenderly cared for to this 
 day by grateful descendants of his former parish- 
 ioners. The rudeness of earlier days is gone. 
 
 Leaving Fouday, we ascend to Oberlin's manse, 
 snuggled in the little village of Waldersbach, as 
 the name is now written. Though the house had 
 not changed outwardly since a visit sixteen years 
 previous, it was not the same home within. The 
 former pastor, whose wife is a granddaughter 
 of Oberlin, had removed to another charge, and 
 with the departure of the Oberlin family, the 
 library and most of the personal possessions of 
 Oberlin had been removed. The church records 
 of the different parishes and interesting aids to 
 local history remain in the parish house. 
 
 Still higher up on the mountain, the home of a 
 government forester received us. A little dachs- 
 hund barked his greetings, and the good woman 
 who presided as host gave us in Alsatian French 
 a gracious reception. Forests of pine, fir, beech, 
 and birch environed us, while through the clear- 
 ings wide stretches of country with fascinating 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 beauty added to the glory of this quaint and quiet 
 place. 
 
 It was from this point of departure that our 
 excursions were made in the Ban-de-la-Roche as 
 seen to-day in the light of its history. 
 
 What did we find? Certainly nothing which 
 corresponds to conditions related by Stuber to 
 Oberlin, nor those which the young missionary 
 soon realized and which burdened his anxious 
 heart. In certain respects it made no tax upon 
 the imagination to picture the ancestors of the 
 people as they were a hundred years ago. The 
 clap of the sabots through the village streets was 
 the same as greeted the ear of the pastor of old 
 time, and for the most part the people in their 
 daily work-day garb had not lost their primitive 
 appearance. It is a pleasant country still, with 
 peasant customs which do not vary greatly from 
 one generation to another. A rural people liv- 
 ing the simple life, with relatively few wants, 
 they yet are in comfort and contentment. Life 
 is plain, but the interior of many homes showed 
 appreciative cultivation. Excellent prints hung 
 on the walls, and precious souvenirs of Oberlin, 
 which were the work of his own hand from his 
 individual printing-press, in many homes were 
 sacredly cherished. For the most part the vil- 
 
 186 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 lagers appeared to be exceptionally intelligent, 
 and not a few of them indicated by their refine- 
 ment of speech and manner that the influences 
 of the past are still active. The peasantry live 
 almost entirely by agriculture, the women in 
 planting and harvest-time sharing the work with 
 the men. It is the impulsion of thrifty industry 
 more than want that encourages them to do this. 
 The houses are often of two stories, and are 
 evidently a great improvement upon those of 
 their ancestors. Most of them are thatch-roofed, 
 though some have modern roofs of red tile. All 
 of them have stoves for their winter season, and 
 wood is abundant. There is comfort within when 
 the blasts howl without. The winters have not 
 changed their severe manners, but the people 
 now know how to meet them without fear. In 
 the summer-time the country has lost none of the 
 picturesqueness which was so attractive to the 
 nature-loving Oberlin. The description of the dis- 
 trict as he found it, " wild, rough, and barren," 
 does not now answer to its character. The coun- 
 try is" neither wild nor rough nor barren. The 
 countryside has shared in the redemption of the 
 people. The hillsides and valleys are rich and 
 fertile, the numerous mountain streams which 
 have been made useful by the complete system 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 of irrigation which Oberlin introduced have 
 clothed the landscape with smiling fields and 
 pastures. Every available foot of the soil is 
 turned to account. All the houses, which are clus- 
 tered compactly, have their orchards and their 
 flower-beds of asters, gladioluses, goldenrod, and 
 hollyhock, though each in small compass. 
 
 In the middle of September the farmers were 
 cutting and making their second crop of hay, 
 which both in quantity and quality indicated the 
 fertility of their hills. 
 
 The little schools were in session, like the New 
 England district schools in our sparsely settled 
 communities. A visit in Waldersbach to the home 
 of the sole survivor of those who had known 
 Oberlin personally, introduced us to an aged ma- 
 tron of eighty-eight years, as alert in mind as 
 ever. Though seventy-six years had passed since 
 Oberlin's death, when she was twelve years of 
 age, she gave a vivid description of his personal 
 appearance and habits when, as a girl, she had 
 seen him " nearly every day coming and going." 
 " He was often at our school, superintending it 
 personally, and always talked with the children." 
 The manse or parsonage is now, as it was then, 
 the center of the village life. The village library 
 is here, and here also assembles the Young Men's 
 
 188 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 Christian 'Association. On the Lord's Day, as 
 guests of the pastor, we attended the church. 
 After Oberlin's habit, he had early gone on foot 
 some miles away upon the mountainside to a 
 neighboring village to preach. He returned at 
 eleven o'clock as the church bell rang for the 
 Waldersbach service, the perspiration standing 
 in beads upon his forehead as he came in. Here, 
 as in Rothau, the service was in the French lan- 
 guage, by a pastor of education and culture. Evi- 
 dently the people were receiving, as in the past, 
 the ministry of exceptional ability and culture. 
 The congregation sang hymns well, as congre- 
 gations should. The pastor read the story of 
 Daniel, the reading being followed by a second 
 hymn, and this by prayer. 
 
 The sermon, from the far-aloft pulpit, typify- 
 ing, doubtless, in the distance above the pews, the 
 elevation of the sacred office, was as carefully 
 prepared as if it were to be preached to a col- 
 lege audience, and indicated not only the intellec- 
 tual gifts of the preacher but also his appreciative 
 sense of the mental qualities of his hearers. The 
 subject, for example, " Daniel in Babylon," was 
 in reality a plea for " the simple life." This 
 would appear to have been scarcely needed in 
 that locality, and yet there were not many of his 
 
 189 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 hearers on that day who failed to demit the usual 
 daily costume of the Ban in favor of the modes 
 of Paris. There were no sabots in the house of 
 the Lord; all had attained unto leather. The 
 life of the prophet in the great and brilliant city 
 of Babylon was contrasted by the preacher with 
 the primitive conditions from which Daniel had 
 come. The peculiar temptations of a more com- 
 plex and strenuous life in cities were pointed out, 
 to the end that his people should rather be con- 
 tent with their homes and homely duties than 
 to be anxious for those of a more difficult and 
 more trying character. 
 
 The service closed with the Lord's Prayer, 
 when the church bell was rung for the people 
 who were not present to pause and bow their 
 heads in reverence, as in the " Angelus." So on 
 every Lord's Day in these mountain hamlets the 
 congregations trained in the schools which Ober- 
 lin planted are gathered to worship Him whom 
 Oberlin brought in his life and preaching to their 
 ancestors. 
 
 The influences of Oberlin's missionary life are 
 still visible in all the district to which he gave his 
 singularly devoted ministry. Generations have 
 gone, but the work which abides testifies to the 
 wise investment of his powers. 
 
 190 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 We are not to look, however, to this little local- 
 ity for the full justification of this notable serv- 
 ice. Especially significant for a missionary in an 
 age of individualism is the legacy of his theory 
 of social regeneration. His missionary ideas were 
 quite at variance with those then current, and, 
 though this was a century ago, his applications 
 of them, even in that limited sphere, are such as 
 appeal, at the present time, to the most thought- 
 ful students of social service. We are living when 
 attention is directed, with an emphasis that must 
 be heard, to the duties and obligations that arise 
 in the complex relations of life. We are led to 
 the frequent inquiry in the conflicting claims and 
 cries of sociological reforms to ask what, after 
 all, is the theory of life for man in his com- 
 munity relations? Dreamers of all sorts clamor 
 in behalf of their visions. A sentimental school, 
 dangerous and destructive inasmuch as it pos- 
 sesses sufficient truth to appeal to half-truth 
 people, vociferously promises a social millennium. 
 Truth abused becomes pernicious error. Oberlin 
 speaks here, with a voice that has not lost its 
 strength, to keep us true to the only principles 
 of a social regeneration and a social progress 
 which will bear the test of time. The theories 
 apprehended and practised by him quite antici- 
 
 191 
 
JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 pated modern sociological science in its appeal 
 to social conditions and relations. He realized 
 with a wonderful prophecy the fact that man is 
 more than man; that he has relations to human 
 life and its conditions ; that he is a brother man 
 who has to do with organized community life. 
 Because the children and youth would soon be 
 the ruling factors in bringing about a better en- 
 vironment, Oberlin began the working out of his 
 sociological scheme with his well-considered and 
 permanent provisions for education as the foun- 
 dation of true social science. The industrial fea- 
 tures, which included instruction in agriculture 
 and the care of trees and fruits with the manual 
 training and the teaching of trades, the inter- 
 change of varied employments, and the increase 
 of the comforts of life, were another step to pro- 
 vide a healthy social relationship. Then, by the 
 insistence upon good roads, came the opening of 
 the channels of commerce, that the people might 
 reap the fruits of their new industries. With this 
 were the constant lessons in self-government ; the 
 principles of liberty as distinct from socialism and 
 anarchy; and the teachings of the obligations of 
 justice in their corporate relations, that the people 
 might remember that they were members one 
 of another. Thus Oberlin left on record for us 
 
 192 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 his conviction that all hopes for the betterment 
 of the social state must rest in a true theory of 
 life, that the permanent adjustment of human 
 relations, and the only cure for the evils which 
 afflict mankind, must be upon the basis of Chris- 
 tianity. He saw in his day, as clearly as we can 
 see in ours, that the Supreme Teacher of the 
 meaning and the duties of life in every relation 
 of man to man is the one to whom we must look 
 for the principles of ideal society with any surety 
 of justice and human rights. Social problems 
 that are full of sorrow and pain will find their 
 only solution when He who is the chiefest person 
 in all history has proved his mastery by the in- 
 fluences which he has set in motion, and when 
 he rules in the hearts and consciences of men. 
 So far the world's best civilization, imperfect 
 and partial as it may be, is that which bears the 
 name of Christ. Oberlin taught that there is a 
 Christian doctrine of the family and of its related 
 life, as there is a Christian doctrine of marriage ; 
 that there is a Christian doctrine of property and 
 stewardship; that there is a Christian doctrine 
 of industrialism and the relationships of those 
 who are engaged in it; that there is a Christian 
 principle that reaches every form of social re- 
 lation and effort; and that as experiments depart 
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JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 from these teachings and principles to meet the 
 conditions of society or to reform the ills of life 
 arising from its complex relations, they lose the 
 strength of truth. Oberlin was right in this a 
 hundred years ago. When people apply other 
 principles, with whatever sincerity, they become 
 foes of order, of human rights and social good. 
 If sociology founded upon the teachings of Christ 
 is not sufficient to secure the noblest ideals and 
 the highest order of social as well as of individual 
 life, then no motives or methods which a lesser 
 wisdom may devise will be adequate to meet the 
 nature and the wants of men. Oberlin insisted 
 upon this with emphasis. In an age which has 
 developed antagonism and hostilities between 
 classes, his legacy to those who will receive it is 
 a prophet's wisdom to say that only as the ethics 
 of Jesus Christ are applied to the rectification of 
 community wrongs as well as to the regeneration 
 of the individual can the conditions be met which 
 insure a happy peace and a true social progress. 
 The New Testament was sufficiently plain in its 
 principles for him, and they appealed to his wis- 
 dom and sense of righteousness. They taught 
 him what he taught others that man with man 
 is a brotherhood which when recognized makes 
 for unity of being and unity of aim. He was con- 
 
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AFTERMATH 
 
 stantly saying to his people : " Think as brethren, 
 feel as brethren, and all relations that you owe to 
 the community and the community owes to you 
 will be adjusted. All enduring social welfare must 
 rest in Christian principles and in Christian 
 practise." 
 
 It is true that modern industrialism and the 
 complexity of the corporate life of the present 
 day were unknown to him. It is also true that 
 the conditions which now confront this age did 
 not exist when the great Teacher of mankind 
 came and lived in the rural obscurity of Galilee 
 that men might have life and have it more abun- 
 dantly. The principles, however, which he enun- 
 ciated and set in motion have proved themselves 
 to be the impelling forces of all endeavors that 
 have as yet made for human welfare, and are 
 the only guaranty for good hopes of its posses- 
 sion. Oberlin was but interpreting his Master 
 in his theory for life in every relation, that the 
 brotherhood of man is the fundamental idea of 
 any philosophy of social good that will meet 
 and subdue the inhuman conditions which afflict 
 society. 
 
 This is Oberlin's lesson to those who will heed 
 it. With this faith as the prophet of a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness, he practised the 
 
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JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN 
 
 eternal principles of social regeneration which 
 yet wait for their better comprehension and 
 acceptance. 
 
 Though he wrought in obscurity, like his Mas- 
 ter, the influence of his spirit and example has 
 been taken to many a mission field the world over 
 by those whose education in their formative years 
 has passed under the traditions and sacred influ- 
 ence of his name, which Oberlin College wears, 
 honors, and helps to make immortal. 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY