The Henson Journals

[326]

14th Sunday after Trinity, September 17th, 1911. Brussels.

Till old experience do attain

To something like Prophetic strain.

311. Milton. Il Penseroso

In days when 'there is no open vision' we have no other fountain of prophetic inspiration than that accumulation of experience which we call History. Has there really ever been any other?

The weather has been beautiful though a little cold. We recovered our luggage in time enough for me to get a clean collar, and shave before going to church at 11 a.m. We began the day by making a vain attempt to recover our letters from Cook's Office. Encouraged by a delusive Belgian with bad teeth & worse English we hung about the Tourist Office for ¾ an hour. The 'Church of the Resurrection' is about 10 minutes walk from this Hôtel. There was the usual attenuated Choir; the usual assemblage of women old & young with a sprinkling of elderly men & clergymen; & the usual young parson. The latter interested me for he had an unusually fine voice; he wore a Cambridge Master's Hood; & he read a sermon on which he had evidently bestowed some labour. His text, "God is love", was made the peg on which a rather arrogant piece of Apologetic was made to hang. He had an affected manner, & an ugly stilted action, so that his argument was not [327] assisted by his delivery. An official told me after the service that he was the assistant Chaplain. It is to be hoped that his chief was wise enough & faithful enough to point out defects which, if they be not arrested, will surely spoil his career as a preacher. If they are corrected, he might do well enough. But I do not think he should attempt Apologetics.

After lunching in the Hotel we went for an hour's drive in & about the city. Then we had tea, & read yesterday's English newspapers. We wound up by walking for more than an hour. The sunset from the Terrace beside the great Palais de Justice was wonderfully beautiful. 'The clouds that gather round the setting sun' were transfigured into forms of limpid glory full of unspeakable symbolisms.

After dinner we looked at an old bound volume of the Illustrated Daily News. It is at once melancholy & interesting to review thus a past phase of one's own experience. But mostly the pictures bore one wonderfully, except the photographs, which are always worth looking. Thus we killed the interval between dinner & bed–time, & closed the last Sunday of our holiday. I do not expect to spend another Sunday without preaching for ten or perhaps eleven months.

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