phraseology of "I am at present, thanks
be to the Lord, comfortable and happy," {128b} but a more attractive
religious arrogance. "That I am an associate of Gypsies and
fortune-tellers I do not deny," he says, "and why should I be ashamed of
their company when my Master mingled with publicans and thieves." {128c}
He painted himself as a possible martyr among the wild Catholics, a St.
Stephen. When he suffered at the same time from hardship and the
Society's disfavour, he exclaimed: "It was God's will that I, who have
risked all and lost almost all in the cause, be taunted, suspected, and
the sweat of agony and tears which I have poured out be estimated at the
value of the water of the ditch or the moisture which exudes from rotten
dung. But I murmur not, and hope I shall at all times be willing to bow
to the dispensations of the Almighty." {128d} He exulted in melodramatic
nature, in the sublime of Salvator Rosa, in the desperate, wild, and
strange. His very prayers, as reported by himself to the Secretary,
distressed the Society because they were "passionate." True, he could
sometimes, under the inspiration of the respectable Secretary, write like
a perfect middle-class English Christian. He condemned the Sunday
amusements of Hamburg, for example, remarking that "England, with all her
faults, has still some regard to decency, and will not tolerate such a
shameful display of vice" (as rope-dancing) "in so sacred a season, when
a decent cheerfulness is the freest form in which the mind or countenance
ought to invest themselves." {129a} He argued against the translator of
the Bible into Manchu that concessions should not be made to a Chinese
way of thought, because it was the object of the Society to wean the
Chinese from their own customs and observances, not to encourage them.
But the opposite extreme was more congenial to Borrow. He would go to
the market place in a remote Spanish village and display his Testaments
on the outspread horsecloth, crying: "Peasants, peasants, I bring you the
Word of God at a cheap price." {129b} He would disguise himself,
travelling with a sack of Testaments on his donkey; and when a woman
asked if it was soap he had, he answered: "Yes; it is soap to wash souls
clean." This was the man to understand Peter Williams, the Welsh
preacher who had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost and wandered
about preaching and refusing a roof. Neither must it be forgotten that
this was the m