J. W. Reche

Reche, Johann Wilhelm. (1764--1835). Preacher at Muelheim-am-Rhein. Published a collection of 606 texts, mostly recasts of the work of earlier German hymn writers.

--Theo. DeLaney, DNAH Archives

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Reche, Johann Wilhelm, the main representative of the Kantian rationalism in the Lutheran Church of the Rhine countries, was born Nov. 3, 1764, at Lennep. In 1786 he became pastor of the newly organized Lutheran church at Hückeswagen, and in 1796 pastor at Mülheim-on-the-Rhine, where, during the Revolution, he published a translation of Marcus Aurelius' philosophical treatise . . . in order to show how a man should become a stoic. After the taking of the Rhine countries by Prussia, he became a member of the consistory of Cologne, which in 1826 was dissolved. In 1830 he retired from the ministry to his country-seat at Wesseling, between Cologne and Bonn, being dissatisfied with the new religious movement of his time, and died as an angry philosopher Jan. 9, 1835. He published some hymns, which, though of little value, are, however, found in some of the modernized German hymn-books. He also published a collection of sermons in two volumes, which are enumerated in Zuchold, Biblioteca Theologica, ii, 1035 (comp. also Koch, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes, vi, 259). (B.P.)

--M’Clintock, John and Strong, James. (1867-1894). Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. New York: Harper Brothers.