bishop of the Evangelical Church
John Jacob Esher, the son of John and Ursula (Schmidt) Esher, was born in the Alsatian village of Baldenheim. The Esher family originally came from Switzerland. In the spring of 1832 John and Ursula Esher emigrated to the United States with their children and settled near Warren, Pa. After a few years they moved to Des Plaines, a settlement near Chicago, where John Jacob grew to manhood.
In his tenth year he experienced conversion, and very early in life felt the call to preach the Gospel.
In 1845 he was licensed to preach by the newly organized Illinois Conference of the Evangelical Association at its first session. He served his apprenticeship as circuit rider in the frontier missions of the Church, crossing the Mississippi River and looking up new preaching places, with Dubuque as a center. He was ordained deacon in 1847 and elder in 1849. In 1851 he was elected presiding elder, and served in this capacity amid great hardships and privations, and with undaunted courage until he was chosen financial secretary of the Plainfield College of the Evangelical Association of North America (later North Western College and now North Central College, Naperville, 111. ) , founded in 1861 at Plainfield. From this position he was called to Cleveland in January 1862 to serve as editor of the German literature of the denomination. The General Conference, at its session in Buffalo, New York, in October 1863 elected him bishop, and he was reelected to this office by every subsequent General Conference during his lifetime. He was the only bishop of the church between the death of Joseph Long in 1869 and the election of Reuben Yeakel in 1871. In 1886 he published the story of this tour in a German volume entitled Ueber Laender und Meere: Meine Reise urn die Welt. From the beginning of Esher’s administration there had been considerable opposition to his principles and policies. During the decade of the eighties this opposition increased, and in 1891 resulted in a division, the anti-Esher minority withdrawing to form three years later the United Evangelical Church—a separation terminated in 1922 when the two bodies merged in the Evangelical Church. In 1893 Esher again visited Japan, and organized the Japan Annual Conference. During the quadrennium following 1895, at the special request of the General Conference, he wrote his work on systematic theology, entitled Christliche Theologie (Evangelical Publishing House, Cleveland, 1898). This task he performed while at the same time attending his quota of Conference sessions and meeting his administrative duties with fidelity despite his advancing years. He was orthodox in his theology and firm in his convictions. His sermons were carefully prepared and fervently delivered, making a remarkable impressioii upon his audiences. Many hundreds were converted and added to the Church through his ministry. He was a man of unusual executive ability and administrative skill and during his episcopacy stamped his own peculiar genius and personality upon his denomination.
He was the first bishop to visit the churches in Europe and he organized the first European conference of the denomination in 1865. He was also the first bishop of the Church to visit the mission in Japan. Accompanied by Mrs. Esher he toured around the world in 1884-85 and presided at the sessions of the European conferences on the way home.
He was orthodox in his theology and firm in his convictions.
In 1845 he was licensed to preach by the newly organized Illinois Conference of the Evangelical Association at its first session.
He was married to Barbara Schneider.
