George Borrow

Transcribed from the 1913 Jarrold & Sons edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the images from which this transcription was made.

GEORGE BORROW

A SERMON PREACHED IN NORWICH CATHEDRAL ON :: :: JULY 6, 1913 :: ::

BY H. C. BEECHING, D.D., D.LITT. DEAN OF NORWICH

LONDON JARROLD & SONS PUBLISHERS

"As for me, I would seek unto God, which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number."--Job v. 8.

You may desire some explanation of why we in this Cathedral, have thought it right to take part with the city in the public commemoration of George Borrow. It is not, of course, merely because he was a devoted lover of our ancient house, though for that we are not ungrateful. Nor again is it merely because he was for the most active years of his life a zealous servant of the Bible Society; and our Church has taken a special interest in that society since the day when Bishop Bathurst, first of his episcopal brethren, appeared upon its platforms side by side with Joseph John Gurney. Nor again is it merely because he was an accomplished man of letters. Religion and literature indeed have much that is common in their purpose. The Church exists to propagate a certain interpretation of the world and human life. Literature also exists to interpret life, and the great literatures of the world have never in their interpretations shown themselves antagonistic to religion; on the contrary, they have always tended to discover more and more elements of permanent value in human life, confirming the Church's message of its Divine origin and destiny. But, unhappily, there have always been, and are still, men of letters whom the Church cannot honour, because their books, although technically meritorious, take a view of life which is in our judgment against good morals, or in some other way mischievous. If, then, we in this Mother Church claim our share in the commemoration of George Borrow, it is because he was, as we think, a true seer and interpreter; because he opened to us fresh springs of delight in the natural world; because he aroused new and living interest in the lives of men of many kindreds and tongues; and because he held up to our own nation an ideal of conduct which could not but benefit those whom it attracted.

Let me, as shortly as I can, remind you of some characteristics of that ideal.