The Henson Journals

[297]

5th Sunday after Easter, May 8th, 1904.

[symbol]

This day is set for the celebration of the 1300th anniversary of the Bishop^rick^ of London['s Fund], and also for the annual collections for the Bishop's Fund. I have prepared a long historical sermon for the morning, and a more directly mendicant discourse for the evening. It is the first occasion on which I myself have preached in S. Margaret's on this Sunday: and now I do so heavily suspected of all kinds of fatal heresies, and, for some weeks past, the object of insult & denunciation, public & private. It is strange to what fortunes we are surrendered, & to what unexpected ends we move. More & more I am persuaded that my life is governed by a Higher Power, and that I move along pre-ordained lines towards pre-determined ends: & yet I am not fatalist because, along with this, I am more & more impressed with a haunting fear of personal failure to answer to the calls & plans of God. Yet can I in no way reconcile these conflicting convictions. To be a Man of destiny, a straw on the stream of Divine Purpose, is one thing: to be a disobedient & self-willed servant, is another. Yet I know myself to be both.

---