The Henson Journals

[328]

Monday, September 18th, 1911. Brussels.

Another brilliant day. We recovered our letters from Cook's Office. Nothing serious in them except the news that Logic was in hospital with eczyma [sic]!! Lack of exercise, hot weather, & over–feeding have done their work, & our darling is in retirement!!

We visited the Hôtel de Ville where we chanced on a 'civil marriage' actually being transacted behind the halberdiers. Everything is modern except the façade & the tower which are very effective: but even here the modern statues seem to over–weight the building. On the pavement in front of the Maison du Roi (another modern replica of an ancient building) was this inscription:–

À la mémoire des Comtes d'Egmont et de Hornes décapités en ce lieu par ordre de Philippe II en 1568 pour avoir défendu la liberté de conscience ce marbre leur fut dédié par le comité international institué pour commémorer le mort héroique de Francesco Ferrer fusillé a Monjuich pour la même cause en 1909

This inscription cut in the stone by public permission in that place certainly suggests many reflections. The [329] historical parallel is sufficiently bold. Egmont & Horn were strong Catholics, & felt no scruple at putting heretics to death. They perished as champions, not of liberty of conscience which they could neither have understood nor approved, but for provincial liberties which the international Committee would hardly make many sacrifices to preserve. But of course the victims in both cases perished under the Spanish monarchy, & all were mortally opposed to the Inquisition.

We visited S. Gudula's where we found a pompous funeral in process. We looked at the glorious painted windows, which deserve to be remembered along with those of Gouda.

After lunch we made an expedition to the Battle–field of Waterloo. From the Lion–mound there is an admirable view of the field. One realizes with amazement the smallness of the arena within which 50,000 men were killed & wounded in a single day's fighting. We walked back to the station at Braine l'Allend, & just missed a train, greatly to the worsening of my temper. However we got back to the Hôtel in good time for dinner. Prebendary Storrs & his wife made their appearance at dinner. We had some talk de rebus ecclesiasticis in the Reading Room.

[330]

That inscription in honour of a Spanish Atheist must indicate the existence of a very bitter hostility to the Roman Church, and to its strength in the civic mind. It is impossible to imagine any parallel in England. The Lord Mayor & Corporation of London overflow with loyalty to Church & King. Even Disestablishment is urged 'in the interest of the Church of England', a plea hypocritical enough in many mouths, but surely not in all. The Secularisation of the Schools is urged by those who exalt the importance of Sunday Schools; & the men who would exclude the Bible from the Curriculum are the most violent Bibliolaters we have! There is no end to the paradoxes which England presents. Here, as in all Roman Catholic communities, Christianity is precisely synonymous with the Roman Catholic Church: no one dreams of distinguishing between them: every objection urged against the Church is assumed to be urged against the Religion; & since the first is very objectionable, the last is held to be so also. In England since the Reformation the Church has never been identified with Christianity: over against it the Nation has always been compelled to see bodies of Christians who dissent from its system: & thus the distinction between ecclesiastical action & Christianity is natural to the English mind. Our people form new sects when they are aggrieved, but they do not become Atheists.

[331]

At Aachen I was painfully impressed by the prominence in the shop–windows of literature dealing with the war with England as resulting from the Morocco incident. "Die nächste See–schlacht: Schlacht mit England" was the title of a book of which, it was stated, in a few weeks 125000 copies had been sold. Here as in Kiel pamphlets about the German navy abounded. It really seems that the German mind is addressing itself to the problem of winning the mastery of the sea with the same calculating devotion as that which has given Germany the military supremacy which now overshadows Europe. Meanwhile our people are obsessed with 'social legislation', & can scarcely be induced to make the indispensable sacrifices to keep up the Navy. To the party–politician committed to the advocacy of grandiose schemes of 'social amelioration' considerations of patriotic duty are tiresome irrelevancies. He can hardly listen patiently to arguments which, if they be sound, will take from him the weapons of his partisan warfare. He will not contemplate the possibility of war: he will not make the sacrifices which alone can secure peace. Mouthing the windy sophistries of cosmopolitanism, & seizing the substantial advantages of party–triumph, he deludes & distracts the multitude, while he poses as their benefactor: & betrays his country in the name of a larger Creed than that of the patriot. But in the interval he sleeps warm & feeds well at the expense of the country which he is sacrificing.

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