OBERLIN, JOilANN ErtsEmucn, distinguished for his active benevolence and useful nesS, was b. at Strasburg, Aug. 31, 1740; and in 1766 became Protestant pastor of Wald ban, in the Ban de In Roche or Steinthal, a wild mountainous district of Alsace. Here he spent the remainder of his life, combining an affectionate diligence in the ordinary duties of the pastorate, with wise and earnest endeavors to promote the education and general prosperity of the people. The district had suffered terribly in the thirty years' war, and the scanty population which remained was sunk in poverty and ignorance. Oberlin introduced better methods of cultivating the soil, and various branches of manu facture. The population, which was scarcely 500 when he entered on his labors, had Increased to 5,000 at the close of the century. Yet, though animated in all his actions by the most pure and disinterested piety, it may be questioned if he did not carry his moral supervision too far when he kept a register of the moral character of his parishioners, and searched with the minuteness though not the motives of an inquisitor, into the most insignificant details of their private life. Oberlin was ably assisted in his reformatory
labors by his pious housekeeper, Luise Schepler, who survived her master eleven years. lie died June 1, 1826. Notwithstanding the humble sphere in which his days were spent, his fame as a philanthropist has extended over the world, and his example has stimulated and guided many. See Brief Memorials of Oberlin, by the rev. T. Sims, mai. (Loyd. 1830), the Memoirs of Oberlin (1852), the biography by Bodemann (1868), and that by Spite's (Paris, 1866).