Bygone Durham Ed by W Andrews Author:William Andrews General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1898 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: Hbbes, Castles, ano Tballs of Durbam. By Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B. a. Cbrfstians in Durbam. MANY influences combined to stamp upon the county of Durham a mark of dignity, which is well typified by the grandeur and solidity of its ancient buildings, sacred and secular. The memory of many saints, cherished with a special devotion throughout a large portion of the kingdom, hovered like a presiding genius over the northern diocese, of which this county formed in bygone days the most populous part, and of which the city of Durham was the head. S. Aidan, winning the people to the Faith by the gentleness of his teaching ; S. Cuthbert, who glorified Lindisfarne by his saintly asceticism, and the wooded heights of Durham by the repose of his treasured relics ; S. Bede the Venerable, shining forth by the light of his learning from his humble cell at Jarrow over half Christendom, and hallowing in his death the west end of thegreat Cathedral as S. Cuthbert does the east ; S. Oswald, glorious in victory and yet more glorious in defeat and death, described in the glowing words of a great Frenchman as "humble and bold, active and gracious, a soldier and a missionary, a king and a martyr, slain in the flower of his age on the field of battle, fighting for his country and praying for his subjects ;" S. Paulinus, with his apostolic power ; S. Godric, with his humble self-forgetfulness; these and others seem to live on in the Church of the north, and to draw forth the gifts of art and the graces of devotion to glorify the places where they laboured, and the shrines wherein they sleep. Again the position, unique in En...« less