At the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century two young men met at Cambridge University. One was an undergraduate at Clare Hall and the other at Trinity College. After graduating both remained in Cambridge and became fellows of their colleges. Within a few years, both went on to serve in parliament, but then quite quickly withdrew from public life, perhaps in disillusionment, and perhaps suffering some kind of breakdown. For each of them this was a turning point. While still in their early thirties they were ordained, and both were instrumental in restoring churches just a few miles west of here. They both died in their forties and both are commemorated in the Anglican Lectionary.
The first was Nicholas Ferrar, who, with his mother and extended family, founded the seventeenth-century community at Little Gidding, restoring the little church there and living a life centred on worship and prayer.
The other was George Herbert, whose feast day is today, and who is the author of this evening’s hymn.
In 1626, as Nicholas Ferrar settled at Little Gidding, Herbert was installed at Lincoln Cathedral as Prebend of nearby Leighton Bromswold; and although he never lived in the village, he took responsibility for restoring the church building there.
However, it is as priest in the Wiltshire parish of Bemerton that Herbert is mostly remembered, although at the time of his death in 1633 he had served there for only three years. I suspect these were the happiest years of his life. But it is the journey towards those settled years of parish ministry that inspired his poetry and which helps us to understand the message of this evening’s hymn.
His friendship with Nicholas Ferrar played a significant part in George Herbert’s story. As he lay dying in Bemerton parsonage, Herbert was visited by a mutual friend, Edmund Duncon, and gave to Duncon a packet of manuscripts, with these words:
‘Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom; desire him to read it and then, if he think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public. If not, let him burn it.’
The package contained Herbert’s poetry and arrived at Little Gidding just a few days after Herbert’s death. Nicholas Ferrar was deeply moved by his friend’s poems, describing them as a ‘rich jewel and most worthy to be in the hands and hearts of all true Christians that feared God and loved the Church of England.’ His nieces carefully copied them before Ferrar submitted them for publication. The first edition of the poems appeared six months later and within thirty years 20,000 copies had been sold.
Herbert’s poetry remains popular and widely read. With titles such as ‘Sinne’, ‘Affliction’, ‘Repentance’, ‘Faith’, ‘Grace’, ‘Prayer’ and ‘Love’, his verses cover a whole range of Christian spirituality and experience. Like the psalmists, Herbert does not shrink from expressing the breadth and depth of his emotions. Both his rage at God and his devotion to God find expression, and often he moves from one to another in a single poem.
Four have found their way into The New English Hymnal, each with a nineteenth-century tune. Of these, ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’ is the most majestic, and ‘The God of love my shepherd is’ the most beautiful and touching. By contrast, ‘King of glory, King of peace’ and ‘Teach me, my God and King’, are more ‘every day’ in style. They explore Herbert’s personal faith and implicitly describe his struggles.
And so, let’s look at the verses of this evening’s hymn.
It’s significant, I think, that the poem starts with the words, ‘Teach me’. Herbert is not piously addressing others. This is, in fact, a personal exploration and reminder to himself that God is in all things. It is God he is addressing: ‘Teach me, my God and King’. The poem, in a sense, is Herbert’s plea to God that his vision and his actions will be God-focused.
Herbert’s own experience had taught him that he could not take this understanding of seeing God in all things for granted, and that he needed constantly to be taught and reminded about it. He had been a devout child and youth with ambitions to serve God as a priest. The earliest extant poems of his are two that he sent his mother from university and both are religious in content. The letter that accompanied them told her how much more beneficial and satisfying it was to write religious poetry than to write love poetry.
On the other hand, there was much about public life, and especially the life of a courtier, that attracted Herbert. He loved fine clothes and was always well-dressed. His manner, too, was elegant and charming. In 1620, at the age of 27, he was appointed Public Orator at Cambridge University, with responsibility for official correspondence and speeches. He came to the favourable attention of James I, who provided him with an annual allowance; and Herbert had high hopes of a place at court, knowing that both his predecessors had become Secretaries of state. But when two of his influential friends at court died, and then the king died, Herbert’s hopes seemed crushed and he left Cambridge, becoming for a few brief months the MP for Montgomery, before abandoning that too.
For several years he wandered from one relative or friend to another, seemingly without purpose, and often in weak in health. At some point during that time he was ordained Deacon, but it was not until he married Jane Danvers in 1629 and was offered the living of Bemerton that his life gained direction again. He was ordained Priest in 1630 and settled into rural ministry. Much of his poetry was written in the intervening years between Cambridge and Bemerton – a time when he struggled to see God in all things.
This theme continues in verse 2. It reveals Herbert’s understanding of how easy it can sometimes be to stay on the surface of things, rather than see the spiritual depths that reveal God. This verse always reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13: ‘For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.’ Teach me, Herbert says to God, teach me to see the deeper things that lead to eternal life and bring new perspectives. Don’t let me be satisfied with staying on the surface – let me see you in everything around me – let me see you in my own actions.
To appreciate the message of verses 3 and 4, we have again to keep in mind that Herbert was writing this for himself, and we need to have some understanding of the times in which he lived and his own situation. George Herbert was born into a family of wealth and means, and at Cambridge he mixed with those who would assume high office in both State and Church. But Herbert turned away from public life, and having been ordained, his attraction was not to high office, but to parochial ministry.
In the early seventeenth century, the country parson was not held in high regard. Men of family and rank, such as George Herbert, honoured the Church by entering it; but Herbert’s acceptance of a country living would have been viewed with condescension by his contemporaries – and beneath his academic and social standing.
It is this issue that I believe Herbert is addressing in these verses. He is not condoning drudgery as a good thing in itself; but he is continuing his theme of God being present in all things and in all people – in the poorest, meanest and seemingly most trivial of circumstances – even that of country parson.
The servant in verse 4, I would say, is George Herbert referring to himself as a servant of God – and there are many poems in which he refers to God as ‘my Master’. He is arguing that it is not beneath him to accept a country living – to accept the ecclesiastical equivalent of ‘sweeping a room’ – to accept a situation many of his class would regard as one of drudgery. He can serve God as fully in a rural ministry as in a college or cathedral or city church.
The last verse connects with the title of the original poem – ‘The Elixir’. Again, it is very much a verse of its time. It reflects the centuries-old search for the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher’s Stone – ‘the famous stone that turneth all to gold’. To appreciate this reference we have to have a little understanding of the mind of the medieval alchemists, for whom the Philosopher’s Stone was the ultimate secret. J. K. Rowling made use of this idea in her first Harry Potter book.
The philosopher’s stone brought things to perfection in various ways. The classic understanding, which Herbert is referring to here, is that it was the catalyst that turned base metal to gold. Metal was seen as a growing thing, developing from a primitive base form, such as iron or lead, to the perfect and noble form of gold. The philosopher’s stone would speed up that natural process. At an organic level, the stone could be ground up to form what was called the elixir of life – a substance that would make the body healthier and prolong human life. The scientific work of the alchemist was to discover this elixir – this philosopher’s stone.
George Herbert takes these ideas and to them adds a new twist that was gaining ground in the seventeenth century: that Christ is the philosopher’s stone – Christ, the cornerstone rejected by the builders, is the way to perfection. It is Christ who makes life rich and meaningful, who offers eternal life, who turns all things to gold. People, actions, things, gain their value not by their surface appearance, but by the touch of Christ upon them. Just as the alchemist believed that the philosopher’s stone turned base metal into gold; so the Christian believes that a religious motive transforms a mundane action into something worthy. Faith in God is the secret to quality of life.
For George Herbert the apparently menial role of country parson proved to be his ‘gold’.
In some ways it seems sad that Herbert struggled for so long with himself and with God before finding his niche at Bemerton, and that his ministry there only lasted three years before he died, shortly before his fortieth birthday. And yet the result of that struggle was his poetry – and a legacy of faith that continues to comfort and inspire people four centuries on.
I don’t know when this poem began to be used as a hymn, but the tune that we sing it to is called ‘Sandys’ and is dated 1833. The tune can be found in William Sandys Book of Christmas Carols of that date. The book contains eighty carols, with eighteen tunes appended. Tune 2 is the one that we know now as ‘Sandys’, and it was originally used with a carol from west Cornwall called ‘A child is born this day’. William Sandys wrote of the music in his book: ‘The tunes are of a pleasing and plaintive nature, and most of them appear to be of considerable antiquity.’
There is nothing striking or interesting to say about this tune – Peter described it as a clockwork tune – and I know what he means. However, for me the value of this hymn is the insight it gives into the life and faith of George Herbert – the depth and honesty of his struggle and the inspiring modesty of his devotion to God.