WIBALD OF STABLO: Statesman and abbot of Corvey (q.v.); b. near the abbey of Corvey in 1098; d. at Butellia in Macedonia July 19, 1158. He received his education in various cloister schools, including that of Corvey; took vows in the abbey of Waussor after being head of the school there; in 1118 he went to the abbey of Stablo-Mahnedy (25 m. s. of Aix-la-Chapelle), and in 1130 became its head; he undertook the reformation of the abbey with success; under Lothair (1125-37) he was called to the court and employed in diplomatic missions between king and pope; in 1137 he accompanied the king to Italy, and was chosen abbot of Monte Cassino, but was soon compelled to retire. His influence increased under Conrad III., and his advice

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was sought on all important matters. After 1146 he purposed to devote himself to his cloister, but in October of the same year was made abbot of Corvey. When Conrad entered upon a crusade, he had his son Heinrich made king and placed him under the tutelage of Wibald. His appointment to Corvey caused opposition there, and even an attempt to murder him. In 1149 he was again sent to Rome, this time with Arnold of Wied; and he was also engaged deeply in the imperial controversies of the time, being part of the time in the field with the army, and often engaged in diplomatic missions to Rome. After the death of Conrad in 1152, Wibald became adviser to Frederick Barbarossa, whom he accompanied in the Italian expedition. He was by him sent on a mission to Constantinople, 1154-55, and a second time in 1157-58; it was on his return from this second mission that he met sudden death, though whether by poison is not made out. In 1159 his remains were taken to Corvey.

His principal and most praiseworthy activities were exercised as the mediator between the Church and the Empire, and his death was followed by adversity to both.

Bibliography: A part of a collection of letters is preserved and published in the Bibliotheea rerum Germanorum, i. 76 sqq., Berlin, 1864. Consult: J. Janssen, Wibald von Stablo and Corvey, Minster, 1854; ADB, xlii. 298 sqq.

WIBERT OF RAVENNA. See Guibert.

WICHERN, vi'carn, JOHANN HINRICH: Founder of the Innere Mission (q.v.); b. at Hamburg Apr. 21, 1808; d. there Apr. 7, 1881. He studied at the gymnasium of his native city and at Göttingen and Berlin. In Berlin he became acquainted with the philanthropists Baron von Kottwitz and Dr. Julius, the latter a physician who advocated prison reform. After his return to Hamburg Wichern immediately plunged into Sunday-school work, which had been founded upon the English model by Pastor Rautenberg. In this way he gained the deepest insight into the desolate condition of the poor, and became convinced that the most abandoned children could be helped only by the erection of an asylum. With this his life-work may be said to have begun. His ideal of such an asylum was to have it resemble a village with small houses in which every child should be recognized and educated according to his individuality; it should harbor a family in different groups, the members of which shared life and work as sisters and brothers, each group being guided by an assistant. A respected syndic of Hamburg, Sieveking, offered him a small house with garden and field, the so-called Rauhe Haus in Horn, a suburb of Hamburg. Hither. Wichern removed in 1833 with his mother and his sister Therese, taking into the establishment twelve most unpromising boys. In the day time they were instructed in practical employments, such as tailoring, cleaning, and gardening, and in the evening Wichern taught them reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, and Biblical history. In the course of time one family house was erected after another; girls were also received in special houses. Still more important than his work in behalf of children was his

epoch-making education of helpers not only for the education of children, but also for service among the people in newly opened fields of labor. From year to year the Rauhe Haus became more widely known, more frequently visited, and imitated as a model, and its founder was asked to supply workers. As his personal connections and correspondence became more extended, he edited after 1844 Die Fliegenden Blätter aus dem Rauhen Hause. It became the organ of that entire charitable work in the different German Evangelical state churches which received the collective name of Innere Mission (q.v.) in distinction from the mission to the heathen. A famine caused by failures of crops and destructive floods in Upper Silesia in 1848 induced Wichern to extend his charitable activity to that region. With eleven brethren he superintended the care of the sick and especially gathered together destitute children. The lasting fruit of his efforts there was the orphans' home at Warschowitz. Long before the revolution of 1848 Wichern had pointed out the dangers which threatened to arise from the dissatisfaction of the masses and the need of the work of home missions, but had preached to deaf ears. Only after the catastrophe was it possible for him to bring the associations serving the different purposes of home missions into an organic connection. He took the most prominent part in the first German Evangelical church diet (Sept. 21-23, 1848), which powerfully aroused the spirit of repentance and faith and awakened hundreds of brave Evangelicals to new efforts in the renewal of Christian life among the people. In 1852 King Frederic William IV. granted the brethren of the Rauhe Haus the privilege of acting as overseers in the Prussian prison service; and in the following year the Prussian government commissioned Wichern to visit the prisons throughout the monarchy, to investigate their conditions, and to suggest means of correcting existing defects. In this connection he was appointed councilor in the ministry of the interior and a supreme church councilor. In Berlin Wichern founded in 1858 a second institution, the Evangelisches Johannisstift, its work to be along the same general lines as those of the Rauhe Haus.

Among his most noted writings were Die Innere Mission der deutschen evangelischen Kirche (Hamburg, 1849); Die Behandlung der Verbrecher and entlassenen Strdflinge (1853); Der Dienst, der Frauen in der Kirche (1858). His Gesammelte Schriften appeared in 6 vols., Hamburg, 1901-08.

(H. Rahlenbeck.)

Bibliography: Biographies have been written by F. Olden-

berg, 2 vols., Hamburg, 1882-87; O. Schnizer, Calw, 1904; E. Knodt, Herborn, 1908; and H. Petrich, Hamburg, 1908. Consult also the literature under Innere Mission; Schäfer, in Monatsschrift für Innere Mission, 1882, pp. 443 sqq., 1894, pp. 489 sqq., 1898, pp. 313 sqq.; P. Schaff, Germany; its Universities, Theology, and Religion, chap. xxxviii., Philadelphia, 1857; M. Hennig, J. H. Wicherns Lebenswerk in seiner Bedeutung far das deutsche Volk, Hamburg, 1908.