Part 44 (1/2)
AU'ERBACH, BERTHOLO, a German poet and novelist of Jewish birth, born in the Black Forest; his novels, which have been widely translated, are in the main of a somewhat philosophical bent, he having been early led to the study of Spinoza, and having begun his literary career as editor of his works; his ”Village Tales of the Black Forest” were widely popular (1812-1882).
AU'ERSPERG, COUNT VON, an Austrian lyrical and satirical poet, of liberal politics, and a p.r.o.nounced enemy of the absolutist party headed by Metternich (1806-1876).
AUF'RECHT, THEODOR, eminent Sanskrit scholar, born in Silesia; was professor of Sanskrit in Edinburgh University; returning to Germany, became professor at Bonn; _b_. 1822.
AUFKLaRUNG, THE, or Illuminationism, a movement, conspicuously of the present time, the members of which pique themselves on ability to disperse the darkness of the world, if they could only persuade men to forego reason, and accept sense, common-sense, as the only test of truth, and who profess to settle all questions of reason, that is, of faith, by appeal to private judgment and majorities, or as Dr. Stirling defines it, ”that stripping of us naked of all things in heaven and upon earth, at the hands of the modern party of unbelief, and under the guidance of so-called rationalism.”
AUGE'AS, a legendary king of Elis, in Greece, and one of the Argonauts; had a stable with 3000 oxen, that had not been cleaned out for 30 years, but was cleansed by Hercules turning the rivers Peneus and Alpheus through it; the act a symbol of the worthless lumber a reformer must sweep away before his work can begin, the work of reformation proper.
AUGER, a French litterateur, born at Paris, renowned as a critic (1772-1829).
AU'GEREAU, PIERRE FRANcOIS CHARLES, marshal of France and duke of Castiglione, born at Paris; distinguished in the campaigns of the Republic and Napoleon; executed the _coup d'etat_ of the 4th Sept. 1797; his services were rejected by Napoleon on his return from Elba, on account of his having supported the Bourbons during his absence. He was simply a soldier, rude and rough-mannered, and with no great brains for anything else but military discipline (1757-1816).
AU'GIER, eMILE, able French dramatist, produced brilliant comedies for the French stage through a period of 40 years, all distinctly on the side of virtue. His only rivals were Dumas _fils_ and M. Sardou (1820-1889).
AUGS'BURG (75), a busy manufacturing and trading town on the Lech, in Bavaria, once a city of great importance, where in 1531 the Protestants presented their Confession to Charles V., and where the peace of Augsburg was signed in 1555, ensuring religious freedom.
AUGSBURG CONFESSION, a doc.u.ment drawn up by Melanchthon in name of the Lutheran reformers, headed by the Elector of Saxony in statement of their own doctrines, and of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, against which they protested.
AUGURS, a college of priests in Rome appointed to forecast the future by the behaviour or flight of birds kept for the purpose, and which were sometimes carried about in a coop to consult on emergencies.
AUGUST, originally called s.e.xtilis, as the sixth month of the Roman year, which began in March, and named August in honour of Augustus, as being the month identified with remarkable events in his career.
AUGUSTA (33), a prosperous town in Georgia, U.S., on the Savannah, 231 m. from its mouth; also a town (10) the capital of Maine, U.S.
AUGUSTAN AGE, the time in the history of a nation when its literature is at its best.
AUGUSTI, a German rationalist theologian of note, born near Gotha (1771-1841).
AUGUSTIN, or AUSTIN, ST., the apostle of England, sent thither with a few monks by Pope Gregory in 596 to convert the country to Christianity; began his labours in Kent; founded the see, or rather archbishopric, of Canterbury; _d_. 605.
AU'GUSTINE, ST., the bishop of Hippo and the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church; a native of Tagaste, in Numidia; son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, St. Monica; after a youth of dissipation, was converted to Christ by a text of St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 13, 14), which his eyes first lit upon, as on suggestion of a friend he took up the epistle to read it in answer to an appeal he had made to him to explain a voice that was ever whispering in his ears, ”Take and read”; became bishop in 396, devoted himself to pastoral duties, and took an active part in the Church controversies of his age, opposing especially the Manichaeans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians; his princ.i.p.al works are his ”Confessions,” his ”City of G.o.d,” and his treatises on Grace and Free-Will. It is safe to say, no Churchman has ever exercised such influence as he has done in moulding the creed as well as directing the destiny of the Christian Church. He was especially imbued with the theology of St. Paul (354-430).
AUGUSTINIANS, (_a_) Canons, called also Black Cen.o.bites, under a less severe discipline than monks, had 200 houses in England and Wales at the Reformation; (_b_) Friars, mendicant, a portion of them barefooted; (_c_) Nuns, nurses of the sick.