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Demme Charles Rudolph, D.D.

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Demme, Hermann Christoph Gottfried

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an eminent Lutheran divine, the son of Dr. Herman Demme, was born in Mihlhausen, Thuringia, April 10, 1795. He studied at the Gymnasium at Altenburg, and the universities of Gottingen and Halle. On the uprising of Germany to repel the invasion of Napoleon, he offered his services, and immediately repaired to the scene of conflict. His zeal led him into imminent danger; and at Waterloo he was carried, wounded and bleeding, from the field. He had been designed for the law. He came to this country in 1818, a young man of twenty-three, deeply imbued with the love of liberty, and an ardent admirer of American institutions. He entered the ministry in 1819, and accepted a call to Hummelstown, Pa. He removed to Philadelphia in 1822, and became associate pastor with Rev. Dr. Schaeffer of St. Michael's and Zion's churches, where he continued to labor for thirty-seven years with great fidelity and success. Worn out by great labors, for several years before his death he was unable to perform any active duties in the ministry. He died Sept. 1, 1863. Dr. Demme was a man of enlarged culture, an accomplished scholar, and a prince among preachers. As a pulpit orator he was not surpassed by any of his contemporaries. Illustrating in his life the power and blessedness of the Gospel, he brought to the service piety and learning, and made the ministry of the Word the grand aim of his life, with which no other pursuit was allowed to interfere. In 1839 he was elected to the professorship of the Theological Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, and in 1849 was appointed professor in the seminary at Gettysburg, but both positions he felt it his duty to decline. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and was honored with the doctorate of divinity from the University of Pennsylvania. He edited in German the works of Josephus, carefully comparing the translation with the original, and adding a large number of notes.