William Nast (Methodist)

William Nast (1807–1899) was a German-born religious leader and editor. He founded the German Methodist Church of the United States.

Nast was born in 1807 June 15 in Stuttgart, Germany. He was educated at the University of Tübingen with a view to entering the ministry, but preferred literary pursuits, and after his graduation was connected with the press. Nast emigrated to the United States in 1828, taught at the United States Military Academy, and subsequently became a professor in Kenyon College, Ohio. He united with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1835, was licensed to preach, and at the conference of that body in 1837 was appointed to establish a German mission in Cincinnati, Ohio. He proved so successful in that enterprise that in the course of twenty years German Methodist churches were established in almost every state in the Union, and in various parts of Germany, Norway, and Sweden. Beyond this Nast served as the first President of German Wallace College which eventually became Baldwin Wallace University He died in Cincinnati 1899 May 16.

After 1859 he edited the German publications of the Methodist church, and after 1840 was in charge of the Christian Apologist, the organ of his branch. He translated a large number of religious works into German, and was the author of Christological Meditations (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1858); a commentary on the New Testament in German (1860); the Gospel Records (1866); Christologische Betrachtungen (1866); and Das Christenthum und seine Gegensätze (1883).

Presidents of Baldwin Wallace University

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