THE BORROW CELEBRATIONS.

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1913, Page 2

THE BORROW CELEBRATIONS.

Naturally enough, the first week of July in this year saw many lovers of George Borrow forgather at Norwich, the city where that queerest of agents a Bible Society ever employed on an important mission spent his boyhood. •One hundred and ten years had passed since his birthday at East Dereham, not many- miles from 'Norfolk's cathedral city, and so this first week of th« monthi was devoted to acts of piety to the dead "word-master." The Lord Mayor formally presented to the city the' deed of conveyance of the little house where Borrow lived, and the week's celebrations were marked by fine speeches. Of these, in the view of one recorder, the best was kept to the last, and it was acclaimed as finer than even Mr Birrell's great effort. It was the sermon preached on the Sunday morning following the celebration. The preacher was Dean Beeching, and the scene was the cathedral. A large concourse of worshippers assembled, and Dr Beeching's simplicity, penetration and impressiveness made the sermon one to be long cherished. His text was Job. v. 8: "As for me, I would seek unto God, which doeth great things unsearchable, marvellous things without number." The Dean began with a very happy contrast between the wild man and the plain man seen in Isaac and Ishmael, Esau and Jacob. It was this fundamental contrast which chiefly interrested Borrow. He studied Esau in his wandering life, and he studied Jacob in his counting-house. He claimed that Borrow had a noble ideal and that he lived by his ideal resolutely. His truthfulnes and. peresverance and love of justice cannot be questioned, and on the point of tenidetrness it was not those who knew 'him best, his mother, or his wife, or his friends, who found him wanting. Passing on to Borrows religion, the Dean found that the fundamental dogma was the providence of God, and he called attention to the appendix to "Romany Rye," in which Borrow argues that trouble is ordained by the Creator as a stimulus to endeavour. Lovers of Borrow, present from all parts of the world, were in that service led to the source of strength in their hero's character. Most popularly known by his "Bible in Spain," but more thoroughly and wimsically selfrevealed in his masterpieces of I lended autobiography and romance—"Lavengro" and "Romany Rye"—George Borrow has delighted and taught a great host, whose numbers seem now . definitely on the increase. His books are marked by a devout, yet quaintly original, appreciation of the grace of God, and abound with glimpses of religious life of his day. His descriptions of preachers, his vivid accounts of religious discussions, his stories of the welcome given by the simple-heart-ed to scriptural truth —who can forget "Levengro's" apple woman and the

efforts to get her a bible? —are refreshing and suggestive to the discerning. -May his influence abide and grow!