Book Description

Excerpt from Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn, Vol. 1 of 2: Bishop of New Zealand, 1841-1869; Bishop of Lichfield, 1867-1878 "How should a great man's life he written?" "How for example should you wish your own life to be written if it ever were written?" These two questions were put to the subject of this Biography not many months before his death. He paused for a minute, repeated the second question, and then said, "Tell first all my faults, and then tell whatever the grace of God has enabled me to do in spite of them." I am quite conscious of having failed to comply with both of these conditions: indeed I have not attempted to do so. As to the first, I know that it is often objected to Biographies of Christian men that they portray a perfect character, and thus defeat one of the great objects of such memoirs: that instead of inciting readers to imitate a bright example, they discourage by descriptions of holiness which are felt at once to be ordinarily unattainable. It is said, and with truth, that Holy Scripture never conceals the faults or the sins of the greatest saints, whose examples are thereby more valuable, inasmuch as we recognise common infirmities of mankind : but I think that there is a flaw in this argument. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.