HERBERGER, VALERIUS: Lutheran preacher; b. at Fraustadt (50 m.. s.s.w. of Posen) Apr. 21, 1562; d. there May 18, 1627. He studied for three years at Freistadt in Silesia, and then entered the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and in 1582 that of Leipsic. In 1584 he became a teacher in his native city, in 1590 deacon, and in 1599 pastor, in which office he was very successful under great difficulties. When Sigismund III., a pupil of the Jesuits, ordered his congregation to cede their house of worship to the Roman Catholics, Herberger soquired two private residences, which he gradually transformed into a church. In 1613 a pestilence broke out at Fraustadt. Herberger performed his pastoral duties with undaunted faithfulness, and in these anxious days composed his only song, which has found a place in all Evangelical hymn-books, " Valet will ich air geben, du arge falsche Welt " (" O world, so vain, I leave thee "). He was a fertile writer. His most comprehensive work is Magnalia Dei de Jesu Seripturte nucleo et medulla (12 parts, 1601-18), meditations on the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, intended to emphasize the revela-
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Bibliography: S. F. Lauterbach, Vita, fama et /ate Valerii Herberperii, Leipsic, 1708 (the basis of numerous popular accounts); A. Henschel, Val. Herberper, Halle, 1889; ADA vol. xii. The volume of selected sermons, ed. Orphal, Leipsic. 1892, contains a biographical introduction.
HERBERT, EDWARD (Lord Herbert of Cherbury). See Deism, I., 1 1.
HERBERT, GEORGE: English poet; b. at Montgomery, Wales, Apr. 3, 1593; d. at Bemerton (2 m. w. of Salisbury), Wiltshire, Feb., 1633 (buried Mar. 3). He was a brother of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. At the age of twelve he was sent to Westminster School, and subsequently to Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1613; M.A., 1616). Here his accomplishments secured him a fellowship in 1616, and the public or4torship of the university in 1619, a position which he resigned in 1627. As university orator he came into close contact with the king, and spent much time at court, hoping to obtain preferment in the service of the State. Among his friends were Francis Bacon, Sir Henry Wotton, Izaak Walton, John Donne, and Bishop Andrewes. On the death of James I. in 1625, he withdrew from court life and retired to the home of a friend in Kent to study theology. The following year he was ordained deacon and presented to the prebend of Layton Ecclesia, Huntingdonshire, to which was attached an estate, with a dilapidated church, at Leighton, two miles from Little Gidding, the home of Nicholas Ferrar (q.v.). Under Ferrar's guidance Herbert restored the church; and, indeed, it was largely through Ferrar's influence that he ultimately gave himself completely to a religious life. In Apr., 1630, he was presented by Charles I. to the rectory of Fugglestone with Bemerton, Wiltshire. His short ministry of three years at Bemerton was characterized by such a saint-like devotion to his duties that he was called °' Holy George Herbert." Next to Christianity he loved the Established Church. His fame now rests upon the posthumous volume, The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (ed. N. Ferrar, Cambridge, 1633, and often; facsimile reprint, with preface by J. H. Shorthouse, London, 1882). Though his poems are often marred by verbal conceits, their genuine piety and devotional fervor have made them religious classics, and given Herbert a position, shared only by John Keble, as the poet of Anglican theology. Herbert's prose-work, A Priest to the Temple: or, the Country Parson (ed. H. C. Beeching, Oxford, 1898), first published in his Remains (London, 1652), is an excellent treatise on pastoral theology. Of the many editions of Herbert, the best is that by A. B. Grosart, The Complete Works
in Prose and Verse o j George Herbert, with valuable introduction (3 vols., London, 1874).Bibliography: A biographical notice by B. Oley was prefixed to the Country Parson, ed. of 1652 and often in late editions of his poems; the Memoir by Izaak Walton first appeared in 1670, then in the collected lives of Donne, Hooker, ed. d 1674, and often in editions of Herbert's poems. Consult: Life of George Herbert of Bemerton, London, 1893; A. G. Hyde, George Herbert and his Times, ib. 1906.
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