Biography
Gerhard Tersteegen was born on November 25, 1697, in Moers, in the Lower Rhine region of Germany. His father was a merchant who died when Gerhard was six. He was the youngest of the family, and his mother had little money. He went to school and showed some talent for languages and study, but his family could not afford to send him to the university. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to a shopkeeper in Mülheim an der Ruhr, and later he learned the trade of weaving silk ribbon.
He was drawn to the inner life in his teens. He went through a time of spiritual anxiety and prayed for years that he might find peace with God. At the age of twenty, he was struck by a sense of the grace of God, and he committed himself to the Lord. He wrote a letter, signed with his blood, in which he gave himself wholly to Jesus. He then devoted himself to a life of prayer and simplicity. He lived alone in a small cottage and wove ribbon to earn his bread.
He read widely in the works of the Christian mystics, such as Johann Tauler, Thomas à Kempis and the French writers Madame Guyon and Fenelon. He was drawn to their stress on the presence of God in the soul. Yet he remained a Protestant of the Reformed church and held to the Scriptures. He taught that the believer should live in quiet attention to God and in complete surrender to His will.
In about 1728, he gave up his weaving and devoted himself to the care of souls. He was a lay preacher and counselor. Seekers came to him from far and near. He held meetings in his home, where he spoke quietly to groups of people. He also wrote many letters of spiritual guidance to those who sought his advice. He was known as a physician for the soul and as a man of great gentleness. He also gave medical help to the poor, using his knowledge of herbs. He lived on little and gave much to others.
He is best known for his hymns. He wrote more than a hundred, many of them in the form of simple and deeply felt devotional songs. His collection, Geistliches Blumengartlein, or Spiritual Flower Garden, appeared in 1729. Among his hymns are God Reveals His Presence and Come, Oh Come Thou Quickening Spirit. They were translated into English by John Wesley and others. They express a calm adoration and a sense of the nearness of God. He also wrote an account of the lives of the saints and many other works.
His health was never strong, and he suffered from physical weakness and nervous strain. He had long periods of darkness and doubt. He wrote of the cost of being alone with God and of the need to endure dryness. He lived as a celibate and saw himself as a servant of all. Some of his critics thought that his stress on withdrawal was unhealthy and that he neglected the church. He did not found a new sect and urged his followers to remain in their own churches.
He died on April 3, 1769, in Mülheim, at the age of seventy-one. Thousands attended his funeral. His life shows the way that a quiet life of prayer may bear fruit. A ribbon weaver in a small cottage became a teacher to a whole region, and his hymns still carry the hush of his devotion.