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Kessler, John S., D.D.

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Kessler, Christian Rudolph

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Kestner, Christian August

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a learned and pious minister of the German Reformed Church, was born in Switzerland, August 19, 1799. "After graduating at the canton school of Chur, he pursued and completed his theological studies at the University of Basle in 1821, and soon after, at the early age of twenty-two he was ordained to the gospel ministry at Devos, in the canton Glaris." In this field he labored up to 1840, when he emigrated to America, and became pastor of several congregations in the vicinity of Woodstock, Virginia. In 1845 he received a call to become assistant pastor to the Reverend J.C. Bucher, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He removed to Baltimore in 1847, and took charge of a German congregation lately organized. In this charge he spent seven years of earnest labor, when he was called to assist his son in carrying forward an institution established in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to train young men for the profession of teaching. In connection with his duties in the seminary, he also had charge of several country churches. Here he ended his long and useful life, December 22, 1864. Dr. Kessler was a man of superior talents, finished education, amiable disposition, and great humility. He contributed largely to the Kirchenzeitung, and also to Dr. Schaff's Kirchenfreund, and is the author of an unfinished work, Biblical Dictionary. He also aided in getting up a German hymn-book for the use of the Reformed Church. See Harbaugh, Fathers of the Germ. Ref. Church, 4:167-174. (D.Y.H.)