As this Pietism was no new doctrine proclaimed by some great reformer, but only a tendency of the spirit which burst forth among many thousands at the same time, the greater number of its professors remained firm at first in the dogmas of their church. In fact, in the beginning it only expressed wide-spread convictions, to which the best natures had already, before the Thirty Years' War, given utterance; that the points of union of religions parties, and not the deviations of doctrinal opinions, were the main objects of faith; that personal communion with God was independent of dogmas; that it availed little to hear sermons and take the sacrament, to confess that one was a great sinner and relied on the merits of Christ only and not on our own works, nor to refrain from great sins and to say a few lifeless prayers at appointed hours. And yet this was the usual Christianity of both ecclesiastics and laity: a dead faith, a mere outward form of godliness, the letter without the spirit. Little did the baptism of children signify without conversion on arriving at maturity, little also did communionship with the church avail, by which the laity only received passively the gifts of salvation: each individual ought to establish the priesthood of the Lamb in his own heart. Such was the feeling of thousands. Of the many in Germany that followed this tendency of the heart, none exercised for many years so great an influence as Jacob Spener, between 1635 and 1705. Born in Alsace, where for more than a century the doctrines of Luther and of the Swiss reformers flourished conjointly and contended together, where the learning of the Netherlands and even the pious books of England were harboured, his pious heart early imbibed a steadfast faith through the earnest teaching of schools, and under the protection accorded to him by ladies of distinction in difficult times. Even as a boy he had been severe upon himself and when he had once ventured to a dance he felt obliged to leave it from qualms of conscience. He had been a tutor at a prince's court, and also studied at Basle. At Geneva he saw with astonishment how Jean de Labadie, by his sermons on repentance, had emptied the wine-houses, caused gamblers to give back their gains, and stamped upon the hearts of the children of Calvin the doctrines of inward sanctification and of following after Christ with entire self-renunciation. From thence Spener went to Frankfort-on-the-Maine as pastor, and by his labours there produced a rich harvest of blessing, which assumed ever-increasing proportions, and soon procured him followers throughout Germany. Happily married, in prosperous circumstances, peace-loving and prudent, with calm equanimity and tender feelings, a loving, modest nature, he was specially adapted to become the counsellor and confidant of oppressed hearts. Over women especially this refined, kind-hearted, dignified man had great influence. He established meetings of pious Christians in a private