Baptist preacher and educator; b. in New York Mar. 11, 1796; d. at Providence, R. I., Sept. 30, 1865. He was graduated from Union College in 1813; studied medicine for three years; uniting with the Baptist church, he studied at Andover Theological Seminary, 1816-17; was tutor in Union College, 1817-21; pastor of the First Baptist Church in Boston, 1821-26; professor in Union College in 1826; president of Brown University, 1827-55; pastor of the First Baptist Church in Providence, 1855-57; and subsequently devoted himself to religious and humane work. He is widely remembered as a college officer. The text-books
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interpreter. One result of the uprising was that the peaceful conversion of the Wends ceased to be thought of; annihilation was now the word. The conditions were not bettered when, in 1067, Bishop Burchard of Halberstadt destroyed the chief senttuary of the Leutizi and rode the sacred steed of Radigast into Halberstadt. Missionary activity was resumed when Kruto, the successor of Gottschalk, was slain by Heinrich, son of Gottschalk, who with Saxon assistance seized the rule. Heinrich proceded more cautiously than his father, though he eves a Christian and had a church at Altliibeck, the only one in Mecklenburg. Constant wars with external foes prevented him from carrying out his plans. His assassination in 1127 caused missionary work again to cease. Under the powerful Niklot, the Mecklenburg country again relapsed into heathenism. The Wends found piracy, which they learned from the Danes, a more attractive occupation than agriculture or cattle-raising. This again showed that what was required for the safety of the kingdom was either thoroughgoing conversion of the Wends or their annihilation. This was the watchword in the Saxon crusade of 1147. Count Adolf of Holstein-Schauenburg and Heinrich of Badewide succeeded in tearing Wagrien and Pola,bien (East Holstein and Lauenburg) from the Wends, and the former was completely devastated and cleared of its Wendish population. German settlers took their place, to whose spiritual welfare the aged Vicelin devoted his last days.
When Bernard of Clairvaux was preaching a crusade to the Holy Land, the Saxons replied that they had heathens enough at home. Bernard thereupon began to preach with enthusiasm the crusade against the Wends. Niklot had been living in peace with the German princes. Adolf of Holstein being reminded of the alliance between him and Niklot, excused himself, whereupon Niklot attacked and captured Liibeck. The campaign thus inauspiciously begun by the crusaders ended in disaster. The German nobles were finally content to make a sorry peace with Niklot, upon his agreeing to let his people be baptized if they wished. .Henry the Lion saw more profit to himself in the Wends as heathens, for so he received the tribute that would have gone to the Church. Upon his receiving the right of investiture for Wendland, he changed his policy, and appointed the Provost Evermod to Ratzeburg, Gerold to Oldenburg, Berno to Mecklenburg (1155). Berno became the Boniface of the Mecklenburg Wend country. He had, indeed, little success before Niklot's heroic death in 1160. 2diklot's son Pribislaw was baptized and the Christianizing of the country proceeded rapidly. This was, however, due to the practical extinction of the original Wendish population. German colonists had taken their place. The Mecklenburgian Wends had defied conversion for four hundred years and had gone dawn without having as a people embraced Christianity.
The Sorbs on the southern borders of the German empire had quite a different history. As early as ?82 a war of the Sorbs is referred to as an " uprising," showing their prior subjection to the empire. They lived together with Germans in the valleys of
Thuringia and were regarded as Christians in the time of Charlemagne. Advances across.the Saale were begun by Count Otto of Saxony and energeti cally continued by his son Heinrich I. The Dale minzians, the eastern neighbors of the Sorbs, were subdued in 928. Emperor Otto I. undertook the first missionary work among these southern Wends. Meissen, Zeitz, and Merseburg were made suffragan bishoprics of Magdeburg on Wendish soil. The first bishops, Burkhard, Hugo, and Boso, were con secrated by Archbishop Adalbert in 968. These southern Wends clung tenaciously to their national language and religion, but the progress of Chris tianity was favored by the immigration of Germans. At the end of the century, there were a number of churches, the oldest being at Zeitz and Boson. In the twelfth century the episcopal cities had become German and had churches, so also had a number of the fortified towns, but the mass of the population clung to heathenism although their sanctuaries and public idol worship had been done away with. The gradual diminution of the W endish population and the increasing immigration of Germans finally brought about the assimilation of the remaining Wends, which was completed in some parts of the country only at the close of the fourteenth century. In Poland, Count Miseco accepted Christianity in the tenth century. A Polish bishopric was founded in 968 (Posen, under Magdeburg), although the Polish population for a long time remained more heathen than Christian. Otto III. estab lished the archbishopric of Gnesen, while Boleslaw Chrabry, the conqueror of the Pomeranians, es tablished the bishopric of Kolberg, with a German bishop, Reinbern. After his death Pomerania re lapsed, for a time was under Danish rule, and after the middle of the eleventh century became an inde pendent heathen kingdom. In 1119 it again fell into the hands of the Poles. Even at that time Prince Wratislaw, his wife, and some of the nobles were Christians, as were a part of the population in the Pomeranian cities. In 1120 heathenism was disintegrating, which explains its sudden overthrow when Boleslaw III. conquered the Pomeranians and made the acceptance of Christianity one of the conditions of peace. (E. ScaAF>x.)BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sources are: Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. J. M. Lappenberg in MGH, Script., iii. (1839), 733-871, and in Script. rer. Germ., Hanover, 1889, also in MPL, exxxix. 1183-1422; Adam of Bremen, GeaEa Hammaburgensis ecclesix pontificum, ed. J. M. Lappenberg in MGH, Script., vii (1846), 267-389, and in Script. rer. Germ., 2d ed., Hanover, 1876; Helmold, Chronica Slavorum, in MGH, Script., xxi (1869), 11-99, in Germ. transl. by J. C. Laurent, 2d ed. by W. Wattenbach, Leipsic, 1888; Arnoldus Lubecensis, Chronica Slavorum, in MGH, Script., xxi (1869), 115-250, and ed. J. M. Lappenberg, in Script. rer. Germ., Hanover, 1868; F. Wigger, Mecklenburgische Areualeu bis . . 1066, Schwerin, 1860; Mecklenburgisches Urkundeubuch, vol. i., Schwerin, 1863. Consult: L. Giesebrecht, Wend, sche Geschichten, 3 vols., Berlin, 1843; Wendisches Volksthum in Sage, Brauch, and Sitte, Berlin, 1882; L. Nottrott, Aus der Wendenrnission, Halls, 1897-98; Hauck, KD, iii. 69-149, 623-658, iv. 554-625; E. Fireusch, Kircheugeschichte der YVendenlande, Paderborn, 1902; and the articles ArrscAH; GoTrBCHAL%, 2; OTTO OF BAMBERG; and VICELIN, with the literature under them.
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