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 OBERLIN, JÉRÉMIE JACQUES (1735–1886), Alsatian philologist and archaeologist, brother of Jean Frédéric Oberlin, was born at Strassburg on the 8th of August 1735. While studying theology at the university he devoted special attention to Biblical archaeology. In 1755 he was chosen professor at the gymnasium of his native town, in 1763 librarian to the university, in 1770 professor of rhetoric, and in 1782 of logic and metaphysics. Oberlin published several manuals on archaeology and ancient geography, and made frequent excursions into different provinces of France to investigate antiquarian remains and study provincial dialects, the result appearing in Essai sur le patois Lorrain (1775); Dissertations sur les Minnesingers (1782-1789); and Observations concernant le patois et les mœurs des gens de la campagne (1791). He also published several editions of Latin authors. He died on the 10th of October 1806.

OBERLIN, a village of Lorain county, Ohio, U.S.A., 34 m. W.S.W. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 4376; (1900) 4082 (641 negroes); (1910) 4365. It is served by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway, and by the Cleveland & South-Western (electric) railway, which furnishes connexions directly with Cleveland and Elyria, and at the village of Wellington (about 10 m. S.) connects with the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railways. Oberlin is primarily an educational centre, the seat of Oberlin College, named in honour of Jean Frédéric Oberlin, and open to both sexes; it embraces a college of arts and sciences, an academy, a Theological Seminary (Congregational), which has a Slavic department for the training of clergy for Slavic immigrants, and a conservatory of music. In 1909 it had twenty buildings, and a Memorial Arch of Indiana buff limestone, dedicated in 1903, in honour of Congregational missionaries, many of them Oberlin graduates, killed in China in 1900. Its libraries contained in 1909 98,000 bound volumes and an equal number of pamphlets, and the college had a faculty numbering 113 and a student enrolment of 1944. The resources of the college in 1909 were about $3,500,000. Under the editorship of a professor emeritus is published the Bibliotheca Sacra, a quarterly founded in 1843, and for many years the organ of the Andover Theological Seminary.

The village was founded as Oberlin Colony in 1833 (in 1846 it was incorporated as the village of Oberlin), by the Rev. John J. Shipherd (1802–1844), pastor of a church in Elyria, and the Rev. Philo Penfield Stewart (1798–1868), a missionary to the Choctaws of Mississippi, as a home for Oberlin Collegiate Institute, which was chartered in 1834; the name Oberlin College was adopted in 1850. To the Theological Seminary, opened in 1835, there came in the same year forty students from Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, after the discussion of slavery there had been forbidden by its board of trustees. A former member of the board, Asa Mahan (1800–1889), who had strongly disapproved of the action of the trustees, came to Oberlin, and became the first president of the college. Oberlin was the first American college to adopt coeducation of sexes, and was a pioneer in America (1835) in the coeducation of the white and black races. The village became a station on the Underground Railway, and an important centre of anti-slavery sentiment. Manual labour was adopted at first as a means for students to defray their college expenses. As late as 1906 it was estimated that nearly two-thirds of the men were to a greater or less degree self-supporting, as were many of the young women. What is known as the “Oberlin Theology” (no longer identified with the college) centred in the teaching of Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875), who became professor of theology in 1835 and was Mahan’s successor in the presidency (1851–1866). He was a powerful preacher and teacher, who broke from Calvinism in denying imputation and teaching perfect freedom of the will, by which perfect holiness might be attained. Finney carried on remarkable revival services in Western New York, in Philadelphia (1828), in New York City (1829–1830 and 1832, the New York Evangelist being founded to carry on his work), in Boston (1831, 1842–1843, 1856–1857), in London (1849-1850) and throughout England and Scotland (1858).

James Harris Fairchild (1817–1902) was president from 1866 to 1889; William Gay Ballantine (b. 1848), a distinguished Hebrew scholar, was president in 1891–1896, and John Henry Barrows (1847–1902) from 1899 to 1902, when he was succeeded by Henry Churchill King (b. 1858).

OBERON (Fr. Alberon, Auberon, Ger. Alberich, i.e. rich, Goth. reiks, “ruler”—cf. Lat. rex—and O.H. and M.H. Ger. pl. elbi, elbe, “elves,” pl. alp), king of the elves. In the legendary history of the Merovingian dynasty he figures as a magician, and is the brother of Merowech (Mérovée). He wins for his eldest son Walbert the hand of a princess of Constantinople. In the Nibelungenlied he guarded the treasure of the Nibelungen, but was overcome by Sigfrid. In the German medieval poem of Ortnit, the hero is aided in his wooing by his father Alberich, the king of the dwarfs. As Oberon, king of the fairies, he fills a similar rôle in  (q.v.). The fairy element in the romance provided Shakespeare with the fairy scenes of the Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Wieland with the subject of his epic Oberon (1780). Ben Jonson wrote a masque of Oberon, or the Fairy Prince (Works, 1616). Weber’s opera, Oberon, to the words of J. R. Planché, was first produced at Covent Garden on the 12th of April 1826. In the Wagner dramas Alberich is the Nibelung who steals the magic gold from the Rhine maidens. He is there the father of Hagen, and has throughout the Ring a darker character than that assigned to him in the original legend. There have been attempts to find the original Oberon in the Celtic Gwyn Aron, but there is no doubt of his Germanic origin, although his history, as given by the poet of Huon of Bordeaux, contains elements derived from Celtic tradition—the magic cup which remains full for the virtuous, and his parentage (he is the son of Morgan la fay and Julius Caesar). With Oberon in the character of guardian of the treasure should be compared Andvari, the dwarf of Scandinavian legend, who, in the shape of a pike, was seized by Loki and made to give up his treasure and the magic ring by which he could create more gold. This ring, the Andvaranautr, with the curse of Andvari upon it, caused the misfortunes of the Volsungs and the Burgundian Nibelungs, and is known in German romance as the Ring of the Nibelungen.

 OBERSTEIN, a town of Germany, in the principality of Birkenfeld, belonging to the grand duchy of Oldenburg, on the river Nahe, 33 m. S.W. of Kreuznach, by the railway to Münster-am-Stein. Pop. (1905) 9669. It is famous for the cutting and setting of agates and other precious stones, an industry which has been established here, and in the neighbouring township of Idar, since the 16th century. The Evangelical church, built in the 12th century and restored in 1482, is partly hewn out of the solid rock. On the hills above the town are the ruins of two castles.

OBIT (through O. Fr., from Lat. obitus, death, obire, to go down, to die), a term for death, formerly used for the account