nkenness became a wide-spread evil. In 1600, the city of Zwickau
numbered only ten thousand inhabitants; but it could claim thirty-four
breweries to supply them with beer. During the war, in 1631, that number
rose to seventy.

But it is needless to particularize the phases of popular immorality as
they existed in the time of which we speak. It is enough to say that all
classes betrayed a growing disgust at religion and a gradual decline in
morals. The danger was imminent that the great work of the Reformation
would be in vain, and that it would soon come to ruin.

Every department of ecclesiastical authority having become disarranged
and weakened, there must now be a reaewakening, or the labors of Luther
and his coadjutors will be swept away. The popular mind should be
deflected from controversy, and become united, at least on some points
of faith and theory. The pulpit needs a thorough regeneration, and the
Gospel should reach the masses by a natural and earnest method. The
university system calls for reorganization, and a rigid censorship
exercised upon the teachings of the professors. Childhood must be no
longer neglected, and the illiterate must become indoctrinated into the
elements of Scriptural truth. The prevalent social evils should receive
severe rebuke from the private Christian and the public teacher.
Calixtus, Boehme, Arndt and Gerhard have done nobly, but they have
pursued paths so totally divergent that their labors have not produced
all the good effects of a _united_ work. Their efforts were
preparatory, but not homogeneous; and what is now needed to make their
writings and example permanently effective, is a plan for infusing new
life into the church. Then there must be inflexible system and heroic
determination for the consummation of such a plan.

When the demand became most imperative, the great want was supplied. Let
all the records of providential supply and guidance be studiously
searched, and we believe that Pietism--the great movement which we are
now about to trace--will take its place among them as one of the
clearest, most decided, and most triumphant.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Kurtz, _Church History_, vol. 11, p. 177.

[17] Tholuck, _Das Kirchliche Leben des Siebzehnten Jahrhunderts. Erste
Abtheilung._ For much information in the present chapter we are greatly
indebted to this valuable repository.

[18] Dowding, _Life and Correspondence of Calixtus_, pp. 153-154.

[19] _H. B. Smith, D. D.