His friends said the job was “beneath him.” It was a modest assignment for someone of George Herbert’s (1593-1633) exceptional abilities and extensive background. He was a gifted scholar, serving as spokesman for a prestigious Trinity College in Cambridge, England. He had been a respected member of British Parliament, yet he couldn’t shake that what he really wanted to be was a pastor.
He was called to St. Andrew’s, a country church in Bemerton, Wiltshire. His congregation was made up of common laborers, and most were illiterate. “I will strive to make it honorable,” he said to dubious friends, referring to the task of training uneducated people in a rural church. That he did! He rebuilt the dilapidated sanctuary with his own money. He fed the poor, visited the sick, and sought to reconcile feuding neighbors. He became known around town affectionately as “Holy Mr. Herbert.” He and his wife, Jane, had no biological children, but they adopted three orphaned nieces. He served the church three years before tuberculosis claimed his life in 1633. He is buried under the church altar.
On his deathbed, George gave to a friend a manuscript of poems that he had been writing and revising in his spare time. His friend arranged to have the poems published in a collection titled The Temple. George regarded poetry as a type of preaching, “A verse may find him, who a sermon flies,” he wrote. People are still reading his poetry, now more than ever. One poem in The Temple is simply titled “Prayer.” You may want to check it out. He utilizes twenty-six images for prayer in just fourteen lines. In one image, he describes prayer as pilgrimage–life in journey with God.
You can detect George’s heart for God in the following prayer, taken from The Country Parson, a handbook he wrote on pastoral care: