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385 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Francis, Saint Franck along lines that subsequently became fateful for his order (see JE$UrTs; ACCOMMODATION, § 8); the instruction he dispensed in connection with baptism was superficial; and he combined mis sions with politics, and approved of the extension of Christianity by force (cf. his letter to King John III. of Portugal, Cochin, Jan. 20, 1548). Yet he had high qualifications as missionary; he was animated with glowing zeal; the consciousness of acting in God's service never forsook him, he was endowed with great linguistic gifts, and his activity was marked by restless pushing forward. His ef forts left a significant impression upon the mis sionary history of India; and by pointing out the way to East India to the Jesuits, his work is of fundamental significance with regard to the history of the propagation of Christianity in China and Japan. The results of his labor that he himself witnessed were not slight (mere figures may be disregarded, as they are difficult to verify); but still greater were the tasks he proposed. And since the Roman Catholic Church responded to his call, the effects of his efforts reach far beyond the Jesuit order; the entire systematic and aggressive incorporation of great masses of people on broad lines of policy by the Roman Catholic Church in modern times, dates back to Francis Xavier. He was beatified by Paul V. on Oct. 25, 1619, and was canonized by Gregory XV. on Mar. 12, 1622. CARL MIRBT. BIBLIOGRAPHY: The best sources for a life are the letters, 146 in all, translated into Latin by R. Minchaca, with the title S. Francisci Xaverii . . epiatolarum omnium libri quattuor, Bologna, 1795; next is the Monuments. Xave riana, in the Monumenta historiat soeietatis Jesu, Madrid, 1899. Consult: H. F. Coleridge, Life and Letters o/ St. Francis Xavier, 2 vols., New York, 1886; Mary H. Mac Clean, Life of Francis Xavier, London, 1895; H. Haas, Geschichte des Chrastentums in Japan, 2 vols., Tokyo, 1902-04; L. J. M. Cros, S. Franwois de Xavier, Paris, 1903; XL. iv. 1839-43. A really critical life is still a de8ider atum. FRANCISCANS. See FRANCIS, SAINT, OF Assisi, AND THE FRANCISCAN ORDER. FRANCISCUS A SANCTA CLARA. See DAVEN PORT, CHRISTOPHER. FRANCK, frdnk (FRANK), JOHANN: German lyric poet; b. at Guben (79 m. s.e. of Berlin), Branden burg, June 1, 1618; d. there June 18, 1677. He studied law at Ii6nigsberg, was a councilor in his native town, later on mayor and a member of the county council of the Niederlausitz. Under the influence of the Silesian School and of Simon Dach of K6nigsberg he produced a series of poems and hymns, collected and edited by himself in two volumes (Guben, 1674), entitled: Teutsche Gedichte, enthaltend geistliches Zion samt Vaterunserharfe nebst irdischem Helicon oder Lob-, Licb-, Leidge dichte, etc. His secular poems are forgotten; about forty of his religious songs, hymns, and psalms have been kept in the hymn-books of the German Protestant Church. Some of these are the hymn for the Holy Communion " Schmiicke dich, o liebe Seele " (" Deck thyself, my soul, with g adness "); the Advent hymn " Komm, Heidenheiland, Liise geld " (" Come, Ransom of our captive race; " a translation into German of J. Campanus's " Veni Redemptor gentium "); a hymn to Christ, " Jesu, meine Freude " (" Jesus, my chief pleasure "). The music for his hymns by the Guben organist Christoph Peter appeared first in the Andachtscym beln, the oldest Guben hymn-book, in 1648. In honor of Johann Franck a simple monument has been erected at the south wall of the Guben parish church. A. WERNER.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Jentsch, Johann Franck von Guben, Guben, 1877. On his hymns consult A. Knapp, Evanr
pelischer Lieder-Sehatx, ii. 849 Stuttgart, 1850; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 386-387.Sebastian Franck, one of the popular writers of the Reformation, was born at Donauworth (25 m. n. of Augsburg) 1499; d. Basel (?) 1542 or 1543. He entered the University of Ingolstadt in 1515, and continued his studies at Bethlehem college, an institution of the Dominicans at Heidelberg, incorporated in the university. Here he met his later opponents, Martin Frecht and Butzer. Bethlehem was still dominated by the scholasticism of the closing Middle Ages, but influences of humanism also made themselves felt. Subsequently Franck became priest in the bishopric of Augsburg, and in 1527 he occupied a clerical position at Gustenfelden, a small borough near Nuremberg.
At this time his standpoint was strictly Lutheran, and he attacked the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists. But in his Tiirkenchronik (1530) his radicalism began to find expression. Here he treats of " ten or eleven nations or sects of Christianity " of which none possesses the full truth, and at the close he intimates that beside the three faiths,
the Lutheran, the Zwinglian and the :. His Anabaptist, there would soon arise a
Peculiar fourth, an invisible spiritual Church Views. which would be governed by the eter-nal invisible word of God without any external means such as ceremonies, sacraments and sermons. Thus Franck appears as the representative of a mystic spiritualism which placed him in strong contrast with ecclesiastical Protestantism. In 1528 he resigned his position at Gustenfelden and went to Nuremberg and in the following year to Strasburg. In the free atmosphere of the two imperial cities his views underwent an entire change-the theologian became a popular writer, the Lutheran an opponent of every Christian system that is bound by ecclesiastical rules. He searched for God's truth among all people, in nature, and history as well as in the Bible. In Strasburg he came into contact with congenial opponents of the ecclesiastical Reformation, especially with Servetus and Hans Biinderlin of Linz. Under the influence of the latter as well as of Sehwenckfeld his spiritualism reached its full development. He held that the whole external Church and all its institutions were corrupted by Antichrist immediately after the time of the apostles. It is not God's will, he thought, that it should be reerected, the inner illumination by the spirit of God being sufficient. We must all unlearn what we have learned from the pope, Luther, and Zwingli.