“ At first a page at the ducal court of Saxe-Weissenfels, he next studied law and theology at Jena and Halle; but ill-health preventing his preferment he settled at Glaucha in Silesia, where he founded an orphanage. After living for a time at Köstritz, and from 1740 to 1745 at the court of Christian Ernst, duke of Saxe-Coburg, at Saalfeld, he made his home at the Waisenhaus (orphanage) at Halle, where he engaged in spiritual work and in composing hymns and sacred songs, until his death on the 15th of June 1774. ”