1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Harms, Claus

HARMS, CLAUS (1778–1855), German divine, was born at Fahrstedt in Schleswig-Holstein on the 25th of May 1778, and in his youth worked in his father’s mill. At the university of Kiel he repudiated the prevailing rationalism and under the influence of Schleiermacher became a fervent Evangelical preacher, first at Lunden (1806), and then at Kiel (1816). His trenchant style made him very popular, and he did great service for his cause especially in 1817, when, on the 300th anniversary of the Reformation, he published side by side with Luther’s theses, ninety-five of his own, attacking reason as “the pope of our time” who “dismisses Christ from the altar and throws God’s word from the pulpit.” He also had some fame as a hymn-writer, and besides volumes of sermons published a good book on Pastoraltheologie (1830). He resigned his pastorate on account of blindness in 1849, and died on the 1st of February 1855.

See Autobiography (2nd ed., Kiel, 1852); M. Baumgarten, Ein Denkmal für C. Harms (Brunswick, 1855).