Stern, Hermann, a Jewish missionary, was born of Israelitish parentage in 1794, at Tennstadt, in Bava- ria. He visited the high-school in Bamberg to study as teacher. In his twenty-first year he received his first place as teacher in Hochberg. Endeavoring to conform in his religious instruction to the letter and spirit of the Holy Scriptures, he could not avoid allud- ing to the defectiveness and emptiness of the synagogue ceremonials as taught in the Talmud and in the Jewish code Shulchan A ruch. Complaint was made to the chief rabbi of the district, and for his own security Stern requested the government that the rabbi be re- quired to superintend the religious instruction of his school. Mr. Bing, the chief rabbi, begged to be ex- cused from doing so, stating that Stern's religious in- structi<in did not please him. The government then demanded of the rabbi either to propose one of the ex- isting compendiums as a text-book for schools, or else write one himself. The rabbi offered to do the latter. In the meantime Stern was sent by the government to the town of Heidingsfeld, near Wiirzburg. Havijig spent two years at the latter place, he received from the government the new text-book of the Mosaic re- ligion, which rabbi Alexander Behr, under the direction of the chief rabbi, had prepared. The one hundred and sixty pages of this book were entirely tilled with cere- monial laws, and contained not a word, much less an exposition, of morality, of conscience, of virtue, of holi- ness, of the condition and destiny of man. Stern called the attention of the government to these deficiencies of the book, and protnised to publish a better one. In 1829 he published his Die Conjinnaiion der hraeliten, Oder dds Judenthnm in seiner Grundlar/e, which was fol- lowed in 1835 by his larger work, Der Lebensbaum. Both these books continued to be standards in many schools, even after Stern had embraced Christianity. The preparation of those works led Stern to study the Bible and the Talmud more thoroughly, which brought him to the conviction that the expected INIessiali had already come. His sentiments he made known to the Jews, who persecuted him as much as possil)le, as they could not agree with him. But Stern often said, "They ought to know it, and it is my chity that I tell them the truth quite decidedly; the Lord demands it from me." Sooner than he expected, the hour had come. In the year 1836 many theologians were as-
sembled together, who were ordered by the king of Bavaria to S|)eak of different things about religion. They met in W'iirzburg; Stern also was invited to be present at the meeting; and now the question was pur whether the Trinity consists with the Jewish religion or not. They all said no, excepting Stern, who could not agree. He put the question before them all — what shall one do if he cannot say yes to it? because he was convinced that the Trinity is spoken of in the Jew- ish religion. They were greatly astonished at him, and advised him to write a book in which he should put his question before them. This he did in his JJa.'f Israelitenthum in seiner Wiirde und Biirde, but insteail of convincing him that he was in error, they censured him and threatened that they would take away his place from him ; but he was not shaken. Stern had Id undergo many severe trials, and he finally resolved to settle at Frankfort as a private tutor. Here he pub- lished in 1844 a periodical. Die Auferstehunrj, in which he proveil, without at all exhausting the subject, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not new in Judaism, how- ever positively this is denied. Two years later (in 184(')) he openly professed his Christian belief, and in the same year he published his Glaubensgi-iinde fiir meinen Ueher- tritt zum Christenthum. He was soon engaged as mis- sionary among the Jews by the British Society, and labored among his brethren until his death, which took place in the year 1861. See the (London) Jewish //e/- «/rf, April, 1861 ; WerscheW, Jeicish Witnesses that Jesus is the Christ (1858), p. 138 sq. ; Missionsblatt des Ver- eins fur Israel, Dec. 1872 ; Delitzsch, Saat axf Hoffnaw/ (1872). ix, 68 sq. ; x, 188 ; Fiirst, Bibl. Jud. iii, 385 sq."; Zuchoid, Bibl. rhe<,L ii, 1269. (B. P.)
Stern, Maximilian, D.D., a minister of the Ger- man Reformed Church, was born of Jewish parentage, Nov. 18, 1815, at Altenkunstadt, in Bavaria. He pre- pared himself for the study of medicine, and when six- teen years of age he was examined for admission to the surgical college in Bamberg, but was not admitted on the plea of his youth, as eighteen years was the mini- mum for matriculation. He remained at Bamberg, pri- vately studying under the direction of a physician, and when, after two years, the time for examination again arrived, all his hopes and aspirations were dashed by a royal mandate from Jlunich ordering the school to be abolished. He went to Niederwern, and here he was surlily told by the chief-justice that he must choose a trade, or the government would take charge of him. Having no alternative. Stern chose the first trade that he came in contact with. For a number of years he occupied himself in this way, and finally resolved to go to the United States. Before leaving his country, he went to see his uncle Hermaim Stern (q. v.), who in the meantime had become a Christian. Stern, who was at that time a sort of a rationalist, rebuked his uncle for sacrificing his worldly interests for the sake of religion : but, before he left, his uncle had implanted the first germs of an earnest seeking after his soul's salvation in the heart of the worldly-minded youth. At Bremer- hafen, where he was delayed, the Lord prosecuted his gracious work by bringing him in contact with a mis- sionary (Rev. John Neander, a Presbyterian minister of W'iiliamsburgh, N. Y.), who presented Christ to his consideration. In 1839 he landed at New York, where the Rev. John Rudy, of the Houston Street (lerman Church, was the means of bringing him more fully to the knowledge of Christ, and by whom he was also baptized. For three years he live<l in New York, and earned a livelihood by hard manual labor. In 1842 he went to Mercersburg, Pa., to study theology, and was li- censetl in 1845. From that time on he was one of the most active men in the (Jerman Reformed Church. He built many churches and organized many congregations. He successfully labored in (ralioii, O., for nine years: from thence he went, in 1862, to Louisville, Ky., where he also labored for nine years, when bodily infirmities obliged liim to resign, in 1870. He was then appointed