The Project Gutenberg eBook, George Borrow, by Henry Charles Beeching

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Title: George Borrow
A Sermon Preached in Norwich Cathedral on July 6, 1913

Author: Henry Charles Beeching

Release Date: June 8, 2007 [eBook #21776]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 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