The Henson Journals

[271]

Monday, August 21st, 1911. Antwerp.

There was a thunder–storm during the night: and this morning the sky is over–clouded & there is a fine drizzle: but the weather remains very warm & close. We have been much disturbed by MOSQUITOES. We take every precaution: we pursue & murder promptly every perceptible invader: nevertheless their appalling trumpet is audible as soon as the light is out: & we are abominably bitter.

(The unexpected death of the Bishops of Oxford and Salisbury creates a situation of considerable interest. Paget & Wordsworth were, perhaps, the two weightiest members of the Bench for distinction & learning. The refined eloquence of the one, & the immense erudition of the other, reflected credit on an Episcopate, which is not conspicuous as a whole for either. Both were High Churchmen of the older type; not sacerdotalists like Gore & Talbot. Both, moreover, were widening in their ecclesiastical views. The Prime Minister has a great opportunity. He will probably not use it, but prefer to take the line of least resistance. There will be tremendous pressure put on him to continue the diocesan traditions of High Churchmanship: & in Strong & Burrows he has two excellent High Churchman available.)

[272]

I went out & bought an English Paper – the European edition of the Daily Mail. It reported the end of the Strike. The scoundrels who organized the strike claim that a victory has been gained for Trades Unionism, yet they have only now accepted the terms which they refused last Thursday. Yet such is the situation of English parties that neither dares point out the cynical wickedness which has wantonly inflicted immense loss & suffering on the whole nation in order that the power of the Trades Union may be advertized, & their authority over the working classes confirmed & extended.

We spent the morning in the picture gallery. Rubens is everywhere, sometimes offensive, often objectionable, always immense. There are many pictures by Dutch painters of great interest.

After lunch we paid our reckoning, & came away, not without regret, from Antwerp. Registering our luggage to The Hague, we got out at Dordrecht, & spent two hours very pleasantly in that very attractive town. The Groote Kirk dominates the place – a noble Gothic Church fearfully handled by Calvinists, yet unconquerably majestic & devotional. Here I suppose the famous Synod met in 1618: & here Bishop Hall preached to the members. Dordrecht looked quite charming in the sun–light, & so characteristically Dutch.

[273]

We went on to the Hague by a later train, recovered our baggage, and took rooms at the Pauley Hotel, where we arrived in time for a belated dinner. After dinner I wrote to Beeching.

There is certainly a difference between the Dutch and the Belgians, which arrests one's notice as soon as the border is crossed. It can, perhaps, be better felt than described. Both peoples are, indeed, prosperous, active, enterprizing: but in the one there is an independence of carriage & erectness of attitude which one seems to miss in the other. The Great Doll of Antwerp must make some difference: & nothing can quite do away the consequences of the fact that in the supreme struggle for liberty Belgium went under, & Holland did not. The heel of Alva has left an abiding impression on the necks of the Belgians, & what the terror of his sword left undone the craft of the Jesuits completed. There is nothing in history more full of melancholy suggestiveness than the completeness with which the Jesuit–organized Counter–Reformation fulfilled the negative part of its programme. It not only stamped out Evangelical Religion, but, a greater & more amazing achievement, the very capacity to appreciate and accept Evangelical Religion. It left nothing but the evil alternative – Superstition or Atheism!

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