MERZ, GEORG HEINRICH: German Lutheran; b. at Crailsheim (46 m. n.e. of Stuttgart) Aug. 8, 1816; d. at Stuttgart Dec. 31, 1893. At Maulbronn and Tübingen he came under the influence of Strauss and Baur, only to turn from them to a more positive faith. Schelling's lectures at Berlin (1841-42) suggested to him the possibility of apprehending historic revelation as the pivotal center for a philosophic system; while Kugler inspired him to a concrete historical understanding of medieval art, a study promoted by his extensive travels in Germany, Belgium, France, England, and Austria. On his return to Germany, he began a careful study of German art, and his Uebersichten took up the cause of ancient German and Evangelical art.

From 1846 to 1850 Merz was deacon at Neustadton-the-Kocher, while during the years that marked the frustration of national hopes he was pastor of St. Catherine's in Hall, Swabia (1850-63). His most effective literary work was his Armut and Christentum (Stuttgart, 1848), in which he advocated not merely "Christian communism," as practised by open-handed Pietism, but rather "Christian socialism," or the corporate application of personal assistance, and the enlistment of women in forms of Christian activity. Pursuing a popular vein, he now wrote his most widely circulated book, the Christlichen Frauenbilder (Stuttgart, 1851; Eng. transl. by S. Jackson, " Eminent Women of the German Reformation," London, 1856), presenting a collection of biographies of Christian women of all eras of the Christian Church. Meanwhile, he further cultivated the study and practise of art, restoring his own church with very modest means and writing the text for J. Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Bibel in Bildern (Leipsic, 1852-60; Eng. transl., The Bible in Pictures, 2 vols., London, 1869). His main object, however, was to reach a scientific ground of harmony with the practical church problems of the present; and his results were set forth in his Die innere Mission in ihrem Verhaltnis zu den wissenschaftlichen and kirchlichen Richtungen der Gegenwart (TSK, 1854), in which he explained the significance and status of the Innere Mission in both actual and ideal relation to the German Church.

Merz now became successively dean and circuit school-inspector at Marbach (1863), supreme con-

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sistorial councilor at Stuttgart (1869), and prelate and general superintendent of Reutlingen (1873). With these positions was also associated his en trance into the house of deputies, in which capacity he was a member of the state synod. His own dis tinctive province, however, was the cultivation of Christian art, in which field he succeeded Graneisen as director of the Verein für christliche Kunst in der evangelischen Kirche Württembergs and as edi tor of the Chridlichm Kunathlatt from 1878 onward. He gave the impulse, counsel, and ready assistance toward furnishing and renovating many churches in Württemberg, and also took a leading part in all the more important enterprises in the domain of church art in his time, both in and beyond Württemberg proper.

J. Merz.

Bibliography: Lutheranische Kirchenuitung, xoviii. 473 sqq.