1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tersteegen, Gerhard

TERSTEEGEN, GERHARD (1697-1769), German religious writer, was born on the 25th of November 1697, at Mörs, at that time the capital of a countship belonging to the house of Orange-Nassau (it fell to Prussia in 1702), which formed a Protestant enclave in the midst of a Catholic country. After being educated at the gymnasium of his native town, Tersteegen was for some years apprenticed to a merchant. He soon came under the influence of Wilhelm Hoffman, a pietistic revivalist, and devoted himself to writing and public speaking, withdrawing in 1728 from all secular pursuits and giving himself entirely to religious work. His writings include a collection of hymns (Das geistliche Blumengärtlein, 1729; new edition, Stuttgart, 1868), a volume of Gebete, and another of Briefe, besides translations of the writings of the French mystics. He died at Mühlheim in Westphalia on the 3rd of April 1769.

See Hymns, and the article by Eduard Simons in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, vol. xix. (ed. 1907).