Whatever Luther may have said about the priesthood of all believers, it took more than a century and a half for the idea to receive full-scale treatment, and Spener, who achieved this during his time as Senior of Frankfurt (1660-86), approached the goal indirectly through editing Arndt’s sermons (1675). To catch the public eye he republished the introduction separately later in the year under the title Pia Desideria, or heartfelt desires for an improvement of the true evangelical church pleasing to God, with some Christian proposals to that end. With a dedication to all the overseers and pastors of the evangelical church it was now a deliberately programmatic writing. In this tract Spener castigated every class of society for their responsibility for the lamentable state of the Church, making suggestions for improved clerical training and preaching, which might have been made at any period of Church history. The real sting came in an explicit appeal to Luther on how best to realize the priesthood of all behevers. To spread the word of God more richly among the people there should be private gatherings under clerical leadership for the exchange of views and Bible study; more radically, there should be private gatherings for the exercise of the obligations of the general spritual priesthood. The faithful should teach, warn, convert, edify each other. These gatherings should be cells for the renewal of the Church. They would also enable Spener, the expert catechist, to drive home his conviction that Christianity was a way of life, learnt by doing.