Credulous<\/em><\/strong> means \u201cwilling to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence,\u201d gullible or trusting or easily tricked or fooled. Also, \u201cdisposed to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the OED<\/em>, the word comes to us through French (cr\u00e9dule<\/em>) from Latin (cr\u0113dulus<\/em>), which comes from the Latin verb cr\u0113d\u0115re<\/em>, \u201cto trust.\u201d The first person singular present tense of the Latin verb is credo<\/em>, \u201cI believe,\u201d which is the first word in the Apostle\u2019s and the Nicene creeds: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae<\/em> (I believe in God the Father almight, creator of heaven and earth).<\/p>\n There are some words that seem to exist only in a negative form, most notably \u201cuncouth.\u201d People will sometimes jokingly talk about a person being \u201ccouth,\u201d but in normal conversation, while we use \u201cuncouth,\u201d nobody really uses \u201ccouth.\u201d Likewise, I have heard people use the word \u201cincredulous,\u201d but I rarely hear someone described as \u201ccredulous.\u201d On the other hand, I hear both \u201ccredible\u201d (meaning believable, sometimes a person who is likely to be believed) and \u201cincredible\u201d (meaning \u201cunbelievable\u201d; it has been generalized to mean, often, really great, but it maintains a feeling of \u201cunbelievable\u201d; however, I cannot think of a person being called incredible as the opposite of credible, instead hearing \u201cnot credible\u201d).<\/p>\n On this day in 1633, the Welsh poet and priest George Herbert died.<\/p>\n Herbert was born in 1593, one of 10 children of a wealthy and politically powerful Welsh family. His desire was to become a courtier, and in 1624, with the help of a patron, he became a Member of Parliament. He was well liked by King James I, and things looked like they might go his way. But in 1625, James I died, as well as Herbert\u2019s patron, and Herbert\u2019s political career was derailed. Thus, Herbert shifted his path toward the church.<\/p>\n In 1626, Herbert received a position at Leighton Bromswold, a small church originally started in the 13th century and added to in the 14th century. But when Herbert went there in 1626, services had not been held in the building for 20 years. Herbert helped to rebuild St. Mary\u2019s of Leighton out of his own money, raising the rest needed for the restoration from various wealthy and influential friends.<\/p>\n Then, in 1629, Herbert entered the priesthood of the Anglican Church and became the rector of the small rural parish of Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, about 75 miles south west of London. Herbert again helped to rebuild the church at Bemerton with his own money (keep in mind that he was not the heir of his family\u2019s estate, so his means were somewhat limited).<\/p>\n During these years he took care of his small parish and wrote poetry. Before his death, he sent his book of poetry, The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, who founded a religious community not very far away from Leighton. Herbert is generally included with the Metaphysical poets, along with John Donne, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell. Sadly, he died at the young age of 40.<\/p>\n This is my favorite of Herbert\u2019s poems. It\u2019s entitled “The Collar.”<\/p>\n I struck the board, and cried, “No more! At this point you are expecting me to somehow connect George Herbert to our Word of the Day. Ha. You are so credulous.<\/p>\n The image is a portrait of George Herbert by Robert White in 1674. It can be found in the National Portrait Gallery in London. It is from 1674, so it is obviously from a prior source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul Schleifer Credulous means \u201cwilling to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence,\u201d gullible or trusting or easily tricked or fooled. Also, \u201cdisposed to believe.\u201d According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2216,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions\/2216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI will abroad.
\nWhat! shall I ever sigh and pine?
\nMy lines and life are free; free as the road,
\nLoose as the wind, as large as store.
\nShall I be still in suit?
\nHave I no harvest but a thorn
\nTo let me blood, and not restore
\nWhat I have lost with cordial fruit?
\nSure there was wine
\nBefore my sighs did dry it; there was corn
\nBefore my tears did drown it.
\nIs the year only lost to me?
\nHave I no bays to crown it?
\nNo flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
\nAll wasted?
\nNot so, my heart; but there is fruit,
\nAnd thou hast hands.
\nRecover all thy sigh-blown age
\nOn double pleasures; leave thy cold dispute
\nOf what is fit and not; forsake thy cage,
\nThy rope of sands,
\nWhich petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
\nGood cable, to enforce and draw,
\nAnd be thy law,
\nWhile thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
\nAway! take heed;
\nI will abroad.
\nCall in thy death’s-head there; tie up thy fears;
\nHe that forbears
\nTo suit and serve his need
\nDeserves his load.”
\nBut as I rav’d, and grew more fierce and wild
\nAt every word,
\nMe thoughts I heard one calling, “Child”;
\nAnd I replied, “My Lord.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n