RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pietism
the way for an artificial excitation of this feeling, j thus involving the danger of insincerity, self-deception, and sentimentalism, which, in the absence of self-discipline and sobriety, formed an easy transition to still worse aberrations. The extreme importance attached to individual experiences and to spontaneous prayer led to a communicativeness often hard to distinguish from loquacity. Moreover, those who underwent no such experiences came to be regarded with disdain by others. It is significant that Alberti, at Leipsic, early reproached the Pietists with self-complacency; and the thought of standing in a peculiarly intimate relationship to God was by no means unusual in Pietism at Halle. These principles were also adopted and amplified by the Moravians, or Unity of the Brethren. This attitude, which was the chief factor in estranging non- Pietistic from Pietistic circles, may seem to contradict the facts that Pietism was characterized by anxiety and depression, that it was cankered with introspection, that it never attained to inward rest, that one " awakened " must ever be awakened anew, and that he sought for indications of the grace which he had received, but enjoyed his prize only occasionally. Yet the contradiction is merely apparent, for the attitude in question was the necessary consequence of the dominating Pietistic consciousness of sin. It was, in other words, the result of an exclusively transcendental concept of the theory of blessedness, which in turn explains why Pietism looked so radically askance upon the world.
By strongly emphasizing personal Christianity in the cultivation and development of pastoral care
Pietism supplied abundant and moat. Influence mentous incentives which were heartily on the welcomed by Lutheran orthodoxy. Church. The desire to unite the clergy more
closely, and thus to facilitate an exchange of professional experiences, led Johann Adam Steinmetz, then general superintendent of the archdiocese of Magdeburg, to organize pastoral conferences in 1737; while by the systematic diffusion of devotional treatises he opened new ways for religiously influencing the masses. The fact that Johann Kaspar Schade's formal protest against the compulsory introduction of private confession was so thoroughly approved by the elector of Brandenburg that he abandoned the usage in 1698 (his example being followed by other State churches) was the result of serious disorders in the practical working of the system, though voluntary private confession still prevailed widely. The victorious advance of Pietism was also bound to affect public worship, which, as part of a State institution, enjoyed such protection in various districts that neglect of it might be punished by fines and other legal means. Not only was the mere existence of private devotional gatherings prejudicial to the position of authority enjoyed by the Church, but she was also obliged to find that the Pietistic emphasis on personal Christianity acted to the detriment of her liturgy. Nevertheless, while Pietism succeeded in making the entire Bible available for homiletic purposes, as contrasted with the compulsory pericopes, the movement failed to produce an epoch in the
history of German preaching. It was, on the other hand, conspicuously successful in the sphere of hymnology, for which it was peculiarly qualified because of its cultivation of the emotional side of religion and its tenderness and warmth of religious expression. Though most of the hymns that emanated from Pietistic circles were pitched in too subjective, and even unwholesome and sentimental, a strain to be suitable for congregational use, some of the Pietist composers, such as Johann Jakob Schiitz, Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen, Johann Jakob Rambach, Carl Heinrich von Bogatzky, Ernst Gottlieb Woltersdorf, Philipp Friedrich Hiller, and Nicholas Louis von Zinzendorf, have won a secure place in Lutheran hymnals; and not only did the wealth of poetry produced by Pietism exercise a profound influence in the furtherance of its own extension, but it also stimulated religious poetry beyond the circle of its own adherents.
In his high appreciation of religious and moral training for the people through the channel of religious instruction Spener followed the lines laid down by Luther in his catechisms, and espe- 5. Religious cially advanced the task undertaken
Training by Duke Ernest I. of Saxe-Gotha in
and the the middle of the seventeenth century. Bible. It was owing to his efforts, indeed, that an electoral ordinance of Feb. 24, 1688, provided for the holding of weekly catechetical examinations for children and adults alike throughout the country; and it is not improbable that Spener was the ultimate inspiration of the Prussian electoral edict of 1692 requiring Sunday catechization in the rural congregations. Spener's purpose was the inward assimilation of religious truth rather than mere imparting of knowledge; and his efforts to advance practical piety among the masses were intimately associated with his interest in confirmation, which became an integral part of the usage of the Lutheran Church largely through the cooperation of Pietism. Still more eventful than Spener's energy, however, was the educational activity of Francke.
One of the main characteristics of Pietism was the fact that it claimed to be founded exclusively on the Bible. This might seem to be a mere repetition of the assertions of Lutheranism from the very first, but Pietism showed its independence of Lutheran orthodoxy both in its unswerving return to the Bible and in its application of Scriptural truths. The Lutheran Church was bound, as Pietism was not, by the creeds in which it had summarized its understanding of the Bible, and which it regarded as authoritative. The Pietistic reestablishment of the authority of the Bible was, therefore, a direct return to one of the cardinal principles of the German Reformation, and by granting the " awakened " Christian full capacity for independent study of the Bible Pietism restored|to laymen the right which they had lost. Accordingly, Francke insisted that even children should read the Bible and made Biblical history a theme of study at school; while for the same reason he sought to gain wide circulation for the Bible, especially through the Canstein Bible Institute at Halle. On the other hand, Pietism impaired the salutary fea-
Pietism