Together with Pietism there began also in Germany a new style of social intercourse. Seldom was a quiet life the lot of the heads of the pious communities; they were transplanted, driven away, and moved about hither and thither. The disciples, therefore, who sought for instruction, comfort, and enlightenment, were often obliged to travel into distant countries. Everywhere they found souls in unison, patrons and acquaintances, and often a good reception and protection from strangers. Those who did not travel themselves, loved to write to kindred spirits concerning their dispositions, temptations, and enlightenment. Such letters were carried about, copied, and sent far and wide. Thus arose a quiet communion of pious souls throughout Germany, a new human tie, which first broke through the prejudices of classes, made women important members of a spiritual society, and established a social intercourse, the highest interest of which was the inward life of the individual. And this social tendency of the pious, determined the form and method of intercourse of the finer minds for a hundred years later than the time of Spener; indeed, the social relations between our great poets and German princesses and ladies of rank, was only rendered possible because the "_Stillen im lande_" had lived at courts in a similar way. The whole system was the same: the visits of travellers, the letters, and the quiet community of refined souls. The sentimentality of the Werther period was only the stepdaughter of the emotional mania of the old Pietism.