produced. The larger part of these writings are still extant. Several editions of his poems were published during his lifetime. In 1870 the Stuttgart Literary Society began the publication of a complete edition of his works. The volumes are critically edited, and, thus far, twenty-one of them have appeared. Hans Sachs died on the evening of the nineteenth of January, 1576, being in his eighty-second year. He was buried in the Cemetery of St. John, just outside the city, where lay the bodies of Albert Dürer and other noted men of Nuremberg. But, strange to say, like John Calvin's at Geneva, his grave is no longer definitely known. Thus ended the life of one of the most unique characters in German history.

The writings of the Nuremberg shoemaker present no great poetical problems. Whatever he thought and felt he expressed distinctly and clearly. The lucidity of his style is one of its chief attractions. It was to this characteristic, more than to any other, that he owed his widespread popularity. As one reads page after page of his poems and notices continually how smoothly, how naturally, how melodiously flows the current of thought and of language the impression is irresistible that this man was a master of the forms of literary expression. He understood the art of producing suspense in the mind of the reader, and he often used it to great advantage. He does not disclose at once all the details of the scene which he wishes to put before the imagination, but allows these to come to light incidentally. The description is mingled with the action of the poem. It is all the more effective because unnoticed. His style has a peculiar charm in its quaint simplicity. In the Creation, Fall, and Expulsion of Adam from Paradise" he pictures, in a very naïve manner, Eve's alarm whenever God visits her and Adam's instruction of his boys, as he tells them how to behave before God, how to take off their hats, bow, and give God their hand.

66

The unique position of Hans Sachs in the history of German literature is worthy of special mention. He is the sole representative of German poetry during the Reformation period. That no other poets were produced has often led to the charge that the Reformation was antagonistic to the advancement of literature. Thus, Paul Lacroix writes: "The Reformation, it must be said, was everywhere fatal to language

and literature; and it dealt an especially severe blow at German poetry. Hans Sachs, the Nuremberg shoemaker, is, perhaps, the only poet who, trying his hand at all branches of poetry, ventured to brave the Lutheran intolerance." * While it is true that there is no other great name in German poetry during this century, it must not be overlooked that a similar statement can be made concerning countries which were not touched by the Lutheran Reformation. It would be difficult to find in the literature of any other nation a single great name that lends literary luster to the first half of the sixteenth century. The Reformation dawned at a time when German national literature was at its lowest ebb. Hitherto, the intellectual life of the people had been limited to a very small circle and confined within a very narrow range. It had been made to conform to the modes of expression current in other languages. The Reformation brought with it new forces, which created a new literary epoch. The Germans were impelled to cultivate their own language, to utilize their own habits of thought, and to develop the inherent resources of their own national life. It is true that the evidences of this intellectual regeneration were not immediately manifested in any marked degree. There was no widespread literary activity. The reason plainly was that the Reforination itself produced such a moral upheaval that the awakening intelligence of the nation everywhere turned its attention and directed its energies toward the profound moral and ecclesiastical problems thus suddenly revealed. It was an age of action, rather than of expression, but action which was inevitably followed by expression. The turmoil and unrest of the Reformation age furnished the elements for the rich literary deposits of the succeeding centuries.

After the middle of the seventeenth century the popularity of Hans Sachs began to wane. The reasons were his unexampled productivity and the changes which had taken place in the German language during the previous hundred years. The people no longer understood the old form of speech in which Sachs had written. For the poet's literary resurrection we are chiefly indebted to Goethe. He gave a true picture of the man in his poem "Hans Sachs's Poetical Mission." He taught

* Science and Literature in the Middle Ages, p. 448. Lacroix is a Parisian Catholic, and classes Wyclif, Huss, and Luther among the "heresiarchs."

Wieland to adinire him, and the Weimar essayist praised the Nuremberg poet in prose, wrote tales in the Hans Sachs man- . ner, and sought to enrich his vocabulary from old German sources. The influence which Sachs exercised over Goethe, Scherer says, is "traceable in his satirical dramas, in little didactic plays, in his poem written in praise of the old master himself, and, above all, in 'Faust.'"* Goethe began to write "Faust" in prose; but when he became familiar with Hans Sachs and his peculiar style he determined to put the story into its appropriate old German setting and to write in verse. It is thus to the poet of the Reformation that we are indebted for the final impulse which gave to the world the most celebrated dramatic poem in German literature.

Hans Sachs is the greatest "people's poet" whom the German nation has yet produced. He was himself a man of the people. Birth, training, trade, and personal temperament gave him a large sympathy with the struggling masses. As late as his sixty-third year he worked at his shoemaker's bench. He loved the common people. He lived for them, wrote of them, and spoke to them. The multitude of his poems on domestic and industrial life comprehends everything which a close observer saw around him. There is no important element of his times which he has not touched. From his poems it would be possible to construct a picture of the Reformation age which would be the most complete and most reliable ever presented by any writer. Schiller says, "The poet is a citizen, not only of his country, but of his times." If he be judged by this cri terion Hans Sachs will be placed among the world's greatest poets.

*Scherer, History of German Literature, vol. ii, p. 100.

N. Walling black.

ART. III-THE GENERAL CONFERENCE AS A

WORKING BODY.

It is probable that several changes will be made, in the not distant future, in our General Conference system. Leaving constitutional questions to others, we propose now to examine the practical workings of the General Conference in the past, that we may discover how to secure the highest efficiency of this legislative body of the Church for the years to come. The subject will be presented under three heads: (1) the number of members composing the Conference; (2) the length of its sessions; (3) its methods of work.

I. The number of the members is variable from one session to another. Some provision should be made to reduce this variation to a minimum. It is generally believed that a delib erative body of more than two or three hundred members is necessarily unwieldy and unfitted for proper work. A careful study of the Conference at work will correct this mistaken judgment. The national political conventions called quadrennially to nominate candidates for president and vice president and to adopt platforms for the parties they represent are not unwieldy; yet they contain approximately three hundred more members than our own General Conference and five hundred more than that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. A comparison of these two Conferences will be instructive. The last General Conference of the Southern Church, held at Memphis in 1894, was composed of 343 delegates, while our own General Conference at Omaha, in 1892, numbered 504. The smaller body has already provided for reducing its number about twenty-five per cent; and a proposition for reducing the size of our own body is now before the Church. It appears to the writer, from personal observation of the two Conferences at their work-the smaller at St. Louis and Memphis, the larger at Cincinnati, New York, and Omaha-that the advantage is clearly with the larger body, and that an assembly of five hundred delegates is not too cumbersome for legislation. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has reduced the size of her General Conference before it had reached that best suited for such work. To those who believe that a great re

duction in numbers would cure most of the infirmities of the great assembly of our Church the following facts and observations are submitted for consideration.

At the General Conference held in New York in 1888 there were 463 delegates. The highest number at any time present and voting was 459, leaving 4 absent or not voting. Fourteen counted votes, taken on different days, show an average of 35 absent or not voting. The Southern General Conference held at Memphis in 1894 consisted of 343 members. In each of the three largest votes taken the number of voters was 296, or 47 less than the total membership of the Conference. The average number voting in fourteen counted votes was 258, or 85 less than the total number. Comparing fourteen counted votes in each of the two Conferences, the proportion of members absent or not voting was over three times greater in the smaller body than in the larger. The attendance of members in their seats indicates, in a general way, the estimate put upon the importance of legislation. But the difference may be attributed, in part, to the better accommodations enjoyed by the larger body. In the unfinished auditorium at Omaha the conditions were not so favorable as in New York, either as regards the seating facilities or the acoustic properties of the hall. But even the Omaha Conference of 504 delegatesnearly fifty per cent larger than the Southern body-shows a better percentage of members present and voting than the Memphis Conference, which assembled in a church. The highest vote at Omaha showed 484 members voting and 20 absent or not voting. Fourteen votes on different days disclosed an average of 50 absent or not voting. It is worthy of note, in passing, that when the New York General Conference was brought to an end for want of a quorum more than two thirds of the ministerial delegates were present, while only about three sevenths of the laymen were in their seats. At Omaha an aye and no vote was taken May 25, and only 10 ministers were found absent or not voting, while 36 of the laymen did not vote. The Southern General Conference contains a larger proportion of laymen, the two orders being equally represented; but as no division occurred at the last session between the ministerial and lay delegates it is not easy to discover the comparative attendance of the two orders. 47-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XI.