Risler, Jeremiah

Risler, Jeremiah, a distinguished bishop and writer of the Moravian Church, was born at Miihlhausen, in Upper Alsace, Nov. 9, 1720. He was a graduate of the University of Basel, and entered the ministry of the Reformed Church, laboring at Lubeck and St. Petersburg, from 1744 to 1760. In the latter year he joined the Moravian Church, and took charge of a parish at Neuwied, on the Rhine, where he remained for twenty-five years. In 1782 he was consecrated to the episcopacy, and in 1786 was elected to the executive board of the Unitas Fratrum, known as the Unity's Elders' Conference, of which body he continued a member until his death. His ministerial career embraced a period of sixty-six years, fifty of which he devoted to the Moravian Church. He was a zealous servant of Christ, an eloquent preacher, and a faithful overseer of the flock. He died at Berthelsdorf, Saxony, Aug. 23, 1811. The following are his principal works: A French Translation of Zinzendorfs Discourses, and a new edition of the French Hymnal of the Church (1785): — La Sainte Doctrine (1769), translated into German and English: — Historischer Auszug aus

den Buchern des A. T. (1794): Leben von A.G. Spangenberg (1794): — Spangenberg's Reden an die Kinder, two collections (1792 and 1797): — Zinzendorfs Gedanken uber verschiedene evangelische Wahrheiten (1800): — Betrachtungen der Weisheit Gottes im dem Kreuzestod Jesu: — and three volumes of Erzahlungen aus der Brudergeschichte. (E. de S.)