The Poems of George Herbert

It is difficult to conjecture how much George Herberts return to the spiritual life was due to the sudden failure of royal patronage and how much to his own devotion ; but it is vain to pretend that it was at first an easy or a palatable change of front for him. In this time of retirement [in London and Kent] says Walton he had many conflicts with himself whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a court life or betake himself to a study of divinity and enter into sacred orders to which his mother had often persuaded him. These were such conflicts as they only can know that have endured them; for ambitious desires and the outward glory of this world are not easily laid aside; but at last God inclined him to put on a resolution to serve at His altar.--From the Introduction by Arthur Waugh