SCHMIDT, CHARLES GUILLAUME ADOLPHE:
Evangelical church historian; b. at Strasburg June 20, 1812; d. there Mar. 11, 1895. Even in his earlier period of instruction, which was passed in the Protestant gymnasium of his native city, he manifested an unusual interest in national and local history, and also in botany and mineralogy. In 1S2S he entered the Protestant Seminary, and his tendency grew into marked preference for church history. In 1833 on his travels he went to Geneva, where the sight of the manuscripts of the time of the Reformation, particularly of letters, directed his special attention to that period. After further travels in France, Switzerland, and Germany, he returned and took his examinations, receiving his doctorate after presenting as his thesis Essai sur les mystiques du XIV siecle (Strasburg, 1S3G), a work which introduced him to a department which he later enriched. Within a few months he began to lecture in the Protestant Seminary of Strasburg; in 1839 he became professor of practical theology, although this department was not one in which his
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Schmid Schmidt
interest was supreme; in this capacity he served in the university 1848-64, when he received the chair of church history which was his first choice. He had, besides, the principal authority in the Protestant Gymnasium, 1849-59 and 1865-69. His strength was also drawn upon for numerous services in other directions to the advantage of the city.
Schmidt's literary works appeared now in the German and now in the French language. They fall into four groups, which represent four departments of church history. The first is that which deals with church history at large, in which may be placed Essai historique sur la society civile dans le monde romain et sur sa transformation par le christianisme (Strasburg, 1853; Eng. transl., The Social Results of Early Christianity, London, 1885), which was crowned by the French Academy; thirty years later he finished his literary labors with a work in this department, his Precis de I'histoire de Veglise d' Occident pendant le moy en-age (1888). The second group is that which has to do with the Church of the Middle Ages, and contains a series of monographs devoted to the various sects and to the mystics of the period. Here belong his thesis for the doctorate already mentioned: Meister Eckart (1839); Essai sur J Gerson (1839) ; Johannes Tauler von Strassburg (Hamburg, 1841) ; Der Mystiker Heinrich Suso (1843); Essai sur le mysticisme allemand au XIV siecle (Strasburg, 1847); Die Gottesfreunde im 14.. Jahrhundert (Jena, 1854) ; Rulman Merswin, le fondateur de la maison de Saint-Jean de Strasbourg (Strasburg, 1856) ; Nicolaus von Basel und die Gottesfreunde (1856); Nicolaus von Basel, Lebenundausgewahlte Schriften (1866); and Nicolaus von Basel, Bericht von der Bekehrung Taulers (1875); in these there was steady progress and change in opinion, as the author was not averse to learning from his contemporaries. His chief work in this department was Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares ou Albigeois (2 vols., Paris, 1849), in which he laid the basis for future expositions. A third group is related to the Reformation in Germany and France. Here are to be noted Gerard Roussel, pridicateur de la reine Marguerite de Navarre (Strasburg, 1845); La Vie et les travaux de Jean Sturm (1855) ; and three volumes contributed to the series on the founders and fathers of the Lutheran and Reformed churches — Peter Martyr Vermigli (Elberfeld, 1858) ; Philipp Melanchthon (1861); and Wilhelm Farel and Peter Viret (1861). Besides these and other writings, a noteworthy series of articles was contributed to the Theologische Studien und Kriiiken. The fourth group dealt with local history, to which the last twentyfive years of his life were given. Here may be named Histoire du chapitre de Saint-Thomas de Strasbourg pendant le moy en-age (Strasburg, 1860); Histoire UtUraire de V Alsace a la fin du XV el au commencement du XVI. siecle (2 vols., Paris, 1879; crowned by the French Academy); Michael Schutz genannt Toxites (1888); and Livres et bibliotheques a Strasbourg au moyen age (1893). Schmidt was engaged all his life, more or less, upon the gathering of other materials which he playfully designated as " hours with the muse," and these in the course of time grew into greater or lesser wholes. Such were his Strassburger Gassen- und Hauser-Namen im Mittelalter
(2d ed., 1888) ; Wbrterbuch der Strassburger Mundart (1896); and Les Seigneurs, les paysans et la propriety rurale en Alsace au moyen dge (1897), the last two posthumous.
The foregoing by no means exhausts Schmidt's literary productivity, not to mention his numerous reviews and other more or less ephemeral writings. Enough has been said to exhibit his exceedingly great diligence. Commensurate with this was his fulness of knowledge, the thoroughness which he displayed in research, and the reliability which was the result. There was also a strong personal reserve or modesty, and a dislike for the rhetorical. He also exhibited pronounced personal piety, a mild and tolerant personality, and a manly earnestness. His later years found him growing, as he more and more appreciated Lutheranism, in opposition to Rome and in antipathy to Zwinglian spiritism. He outgrew also his early partiality for Romanticism. With him departed the last representative of the early generation of Strasburg theologians who, before the Franco- Prussian War, acted as mediators between German and French theology, whose influence extended beyond the scene of their labors.
(P. Lobstein.) Bibliography: A sketch of Schmidt's life was furnished by R. Reuss to the Journal a" Alsace, Mar., 1895, and reprinted separately, Strasburg, the same year. The same writer provided a preface drawn from Schmidt's remains to the Worterbuch, ut sup., and further material was provided by Pfister prefatorially in Les Seigneurs, pp. v.— xxxv.
SCHMIDT, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS: Lutheran; b. at Leutenberg (68 m. s.w. of Leipsic), Germany, Jan. 3, 1837. He was brought as a child to the United States, and received his education at Concordia College, St. Louis (B.A., 1857); entered the Lutheran ministry as pastor of the German Congregation, Eden, N. Y., where he served, 1857- 1859; was pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Baltimore, 1859-61; professor in the Luther College, Decoran, la., 1861-72; professor of theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, 1872-76; at Madison, Wis., 1876-86, at Northfield, Minn., 1886- 1890, and since 1890 at the Seminary of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church, Minneapolis; he also edited The Lutheran Watchman, 1865-66, Altes und Neues, 1880-85, and Lutherske Vidnesbyrd, 1882-88.
SCHMIDT, HERMANN CHRISTOPH: German Lutheran; b. at Frickenhofen (a village near Gaildorf, 31 m. n.e. of Stuttgart) Feb. 23, 1832; d. at Breslau Nov. 19, 1893. He was educated at Tubingen (1850-54), where, after having been vicar at Korb and private tutor at Berlin and Danzig, he was lecturer in 1858,-61. He was then city vicar of Stuttgart until 1863, acting as general supply to the clergy, and in the latter year was called in a similar capacity to Calw, where he remained until 1869, sturdily opposing the local Pietism with the supranaturalism which characterized his theological position throughout his life, but unable to influence the people generally. From 1869 to 1881 he was attached to the Leonhardskirche at Breslau. Here he also took an active part in practical religious life, especially in the Innere Mission (q.v.), being president of the South German conference after 1869 and publishing at Hamburg in 1879 his In-
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