Note 47 — EPHRATA.

A new movement in German theology arose in the second half of the seventeenth century, through Spener, the founder of Pietism. The central principle of Pietism was that Christianity was first of all life, and that the strongest proof of the truth of its doctrines was to be found in the religious experience of the believing subject. The principles of the Pietists were in the main shared by the Moravians. (See American Cyclopædia, article German Theology.) Compare this statement of the main principle of Pietism with this of the Anabaptists, whom the mass of our Dunkers so much resemble: “The opinions common to the Anabaptists are founded on the principle that Christ’s kingdom on earth, or the church, is a visible society of pious and holy persons, with none of those institutions which human sagacity has devised for the ungodly.” (See American Cyclopædia, article Anabaptists.)