His courtly friends were
surprised that he should lower himself by helping a poor man with
his own hands. But that is just one thing that we have to
remember about Herbert, he had nothing of the puritan in him, he
was a cavalier, a courtier, yet he showed the world that it was
possible to be these and still be a good man. He did not believe
that any honest work was a "dirty employment." In one of his
poems he says:
"Teach me my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.
. . . . .
"All may of Thee Partake:
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture (for Thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.
"A Servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
"This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told."*
*Counted.
I have told you the story about Herbert and the poor man in the
words of Izaak Walton, the first writer of a life of George
Herbert.
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