Muhlenberg College - Ciarla Yearbook (Allentown, PA)

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jtlelcljtor ittulilrabcrg, 30. 30 ♦ SMg ENRY MELCHIOR MUHLENBERG, known as the “Patriarch of the Lutheran Church of America” was born at Eimbeck, Hanover, September 6, 1711. Among the first students, he entered Gottingen in 1735, graduating three years later. While teaching at Orphan House, Halle, during the following year, he was marked for service as a foreign missionary in India. While there he accepted the call of the “United Congregations” in Pennsylvania. After visits to London and Georgia, to familiarize himself with the English and American relations he arrived at Philadelphia, November 25, 1742. The people he found had been sadly neglected, scattered, without church buildings or even regular organizations, without schools and at the mercy of imposters claiming to be pastors. He awakened new activity at once. From then until his death, at The Trappe Oct. 7, 1787, he was occupied with the organization of congregations and the various interests and agencies of the Lutheran Church, as well as in diligent pastoral ministrations. His travels, in looking after the scattered people, extended from Northern New York to Georgia, while his influence and efforts through correspondence had a much wider range. Muhlenberg gave to the congregations a model of a constitution, which has been followed in most of the congregations of the General Synod, General Council and many other congregations. He was the founder of the first synod for which the Church in Germany gave him few precedents. He was the author of the first liturgy of 1748 and wrote the preface for the hymn-book of 1786. In order to reach the hearts of all men he spared himself no labor to master the languages and sometimes preached in three tongues on one Sunday. Appreciating the importance of training American pastors for American congregations he purchased ground for a seminary as early as 1749. His only book the “Defence of Pietism ” was written in 1741. Muhlenberg was married to a daughter of the distinguished Indian agent, Conrad Weiser. He received the degree D. D. from the Univ ersity of Pennsylvania. Dying Oct. 7, 1787, he was buried alongside of the venerable Trappe church. Muhlenberg was of deep religious conviction, of extraordinary apostolic zeal for the spiritual welfare of individuals, of every absorbing devotion to his calling. These traits were combined with an intuitive penetration and extended width of view, a statesmanlike grasp of every situation and an almost prophetic foresight, coolness, discrimination of judgment and peculiar gifts for organization and administration. He was a true son of the Lutheran Church, pledged at his ordination to the full body of the Lutheran Confessions and exacted this pledge from all those whom he ordained and inserted it in the congregational constitutions, as well as in the constitution of the first synod. 11

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®r. Stjolpl) s’patri) T HE greatly lamented Dr. Spaeth, whose earthly life came to an end on the 25th of June, 1910, the anniversary of the Augsburg Con- fession, was a member of our Board of Trustees from 1870 to 1882. He was born at Eislingen, South Germany, October 29, 1839. He received his classical training in one of those colleges of Wuerttemburg which are famous for their thoroughness in every department. He stud- ied philosophy and theology in Tuebingen University, where he was graduated with honors in 1861. During the same year he was ordained to the office of the ministry in the Lutheran Church and became assist- ant pastor of a rural parish. After a year’s labor in his native country he accepted an appointment as tutor of the present Duke of Argyll, the husband of Princess Louise of England. In 1863 he came to America and became the assistant of Dr. Mann, senior pastor of Zion’s Church in Philadelphia. From 1867 until the day of his death he was the beloved and justly revered pastor of St. John’s German Church in Philadelphia. In 1873 he became a professor in our Theological Seminary, occupying the chair of New Testament Exegesis and Ethics. He was President of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania as well as of the General Council, for which august body he prepared the Kirchenbuch and the Sonntagschul- buch. He was a contributor to church periodicals and the author of sev- eral valued books, e. g. the Life of Dr. Krauth, his father-in-law. Church music had in him an enthusiastic admirer and promoter. He for twenty- five years was intimately connected with the Deaconess Home and the German Hospital in the City of Brotherly Love. He was a prominent personality in the community and his friends were found throughout the entire country. He was at his best in the pulpit, for he possessed the gift of consecrated eloquence, which drew the hearts of men to him, and of many to the Lord, whose humble servant he has been, 12