Johann Friedrich Starck (1680–1756)

I used this book as part of my daily devotions.

I was curious about the devotional life in Germany during the 18th century and this book was useful and at times quite inspiring.

The book contains hundreds, well over 600 pages, of daily prayers used for health, trouble, sickness, and for those in their dying hour. There are various festival exercises and many beautiful penances, shrifts, and collects. It also includes prayer for good weather, morning and evening prayers for every day of the week, prayers for a time of war, of death, pestilence, and of peace.

The following is from the book's preface:

PREFACE.

Dear Christian Reader :

The present Hand-book of the learned, pious, and Lowly-minded pastor, John Frederick Stark, who was gathered to the bosom of his Lord on the 17th of July, 1756, at Frankfort on the Main, has
quickened and comforted many thousands of souls,and made of their dying hour an hour of joy. It therefore requires no further recommendation. Having been first published in 1728, it has now been regarded by rich and poor, for more than a hundred years, as an indispensable part of the family library, and read with eagerness and profit wherever the German language is spoken.

Yon have here, therefore, dear Christian reader, a correct English transcript of the same old Stark which has comforted the sorrows of your grandfathers and great-grandfathers, making, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, a stark, strong man, of many a tottering, feeble one.

May this volume, so visibly blest of God, become your hand-book also, and bring comfort to your drooping spirits, in hours of sorrow.

This, Christian reader, is what I desired to tell you before you read the book itself Let me only add. that I hope for the blessing of God on your reading and your prayers I Amen.… (more)