upon, because of its supposed conflict with the
letter of Scripture. The language of Spener and Francke, which was full
of practical earnestness, came into disuse. Definitions became loose and
vague. The _Collegia_, which had done so much good, now grew formal,
cold, and disputatious. The missions, which had begun very auspiciously,
dwindled from want of means and men. External life became pharisaical.
Great weight was attached to long prayers. A Duke of Coburg required the
masters of schools to utter a long prayer in his presence, as a test of
fitness for advancement. Pietism grew mystical, ascetic, and
superstitious. Some of its advocates and votaries made great pretensions
to holiness and unusual gifts. This had a tendency to bring the system
into disrepute in certain quarters, though the good influences that it
had exerted still existed and increased. It might disappear, but the
good achieved by it would live after it. But a strong effort was made by
Frederic William I. to maintain its prominence and weight. From 1729 to
1736, he continued his edict that no Lutheran theologian should be
appointed in a Prussian pulpit who had not studied at least two years in
Halle, and received from the faculty a testimonial of his state of
grace. But when he was succeeded by Frederic II., commonly called
Frederic the Great, that University no longer enjoyed the royal
patronage, and Halle, instead of being the school of practical piety and
scriptural study, degenerated into a seminary of Rationalism.

It was charged against the Pietists that they wrote but little. Writing
was not their mission. It was theirs to act, to reform the practical
life and faith of the people, not to waste all their strength in a war
of books. They wrote what they needed to carry out their lofty aim; and
this was, perhaps, sufficient. They did lack profundity of thought; but,
let it be remembered that their work was restorative, not initial.
Pietism, though it ceased its aggressive power after Francke and
Thomasius, was destined to exert a reproductive power long afterwards.
From their day to the present, whenever there has arisen a great
religious want, the heart of the people has been directed towards this
same agency as a ground of hope. Whatever be said against it, it cannot
be denied that it has succeeded in finding a safe lodgment in the
affections of the evangelical portion of the German church.

Witness Bengel, who was a Pietist of the Spener schoo