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Herbert described his poetry as "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." Among his poems is "The Windows":

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
More reverend grows, and more doth win;
Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe, but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing
And in the ear, not conscience, ring.

Herbert is also famous for his prose work, A Priest to the Temple, or the Country Parson, published posthumously in 1652. In it he outlines "the form and character of a true pastor, that I may have a mark to aim at: which also I will set as high as I can, since he shoots higher that threatens the moon, than he that aims at a tree." The key to being a good pastor, Herbert argues, is to be a good person. He was very concerned with the private personal life of the pastor, who was to serve as "all to his parish," as father, lawyer, doctor, counselor, and deputy of Christ.

Herbert believed poetry was in some ways a type of preaching: "A verse may find him who a sermon flies." For the same reason, he was also fond of proverbs, and many of those he used in his sermons survive today: "Whose house is of glass must not throw stones at another." "The eye is bigger than the belly." "His bark is worse than his bite." "Half the world knows not how the other half lives."

Though he was a genius in composing both poetry and proverbs, he believed something else was central: "By these [proverbs] and other means the Parson procures attention," he wrote, "but the character of his sermon is holiness; he is not witty, or learned or eloquent, but holy."

Recommended Resources Buy the book containing this and many other profiles of Christians you should know.

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