The pain and damage of Christian divisions and international warfare affected Comenius and his church both directly and disastrously: His prodigious energy and gifts were obsessively employed to change the way the world and church worked.
As Shakespeare wrote, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." John Calvin was certainly not born great.
A spiritual hunger grew in reaction to the coldness and formalism of the Protestant state churches. Drawing from diverse roots, Pietism emerged as a quest to apply Reformation doctrine to personal life.
