Spener, Philip Jacob, German Protestant theologian, founder of the Pietists (q.v.), born in Alsace, studied in Strasburg; in 1670 held a series of meetings which he called “Collegia Pietatis,” whence the name of his sect; established himself in Dresden and in Berlin, but Halle was the centre of the movement; he was an earnest and universally esteemed man (1636‒1705).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Spencer Gulf * Spenser, Edmund