“ The direct originator of the movement was Philip Jacob Spener, who combined the Lutheran emphasis on Biblical doctrine with the Reformed tendency to vigorous Christian life. Born at Rappoltsweiler, in Alsace on the 13th of, January 1635, traincd by a devout godmother, who used books of devotion like Arndt’s True Christianity, accustomed to hear the sermons of a pastor who preached the Bible more than the Lutheran creeds, Spener as early convinced of the necessity of a moral and religious reformation of the German Church. ”

“ Heppe and Ritschl—have included under it nearly all religious tendencies amongst Protestants of the last three centuries in the direction of a more serious cultivation of personal piety than that prevalent in the various established churches. Ritschl, too, treats Pietism as a retrograde movement of Christian life towards Catholicism. Some historians also speak of a later or modern Pietism, characterizing thereby a party in the German Church ¢h1ch was probably at first influenced by some remains of Spener’s Pietism in Westphalia, on the Rhine, in Wurttemberg, and at Halle and Berlin. ”

“ A large number of pastors at once practically adopted Spener’s proposals. In Paul Gerhardt the movement found a singer whose hymns are genuine folk poetry. In 1686 Spener accepted an appointment to the court-chaplaincy at Dresden, which opened to him a wider though more difficult sphere of labour. In Leipzig a society of young theologians was formed under his influence for the learned study and devout application of the Bible. ”