The Henson Journals
Fri 21 March 1913
Volume 18, Pages 308 to 309
[308]
Good Friday, March 21st, 1913.
O man, strange composite of heaven earth!
Majesty dwarfed to baseness! flagrant flower
Running to poisonous seed! and seeming worth
Choking corruption! weakness mastering power!
Who never art so near to crime and shame,
As when thou hast achieved some deed of name.
Newman "The Dream of Gerontius".
General Gordon marked with doubled pencil line the last three lines. Who does not endorse the affirmation which he thus disclosed? The practical paradox – the higher you rise, the nearer you fall – is fulfilled in lesser men than the Hero–Saint of the Sudan!
The Cathedral looked very beautiful in the morning sunlight. There was but a small congregation at Mattins: had the Grammar school boys been absent the nakedness of the land would have been very marked. The service consisted of Mattins, Litany, Ante–Communion Office, Sermon – all unaccompanied. According to a custom of some standing the Preacher was the Sacrist. He preached quite pleasantly. After service I wrote at some length to Symonds of Montreal with reference to his difficulty with the Bishop on account of preaching in a Presbyterian Church.
[309]
There was a very fairly numerous congregation in the Cathedral at Evensong, more numerous by far than I had ventured to expect, as the University has gone down, the boys don't attend the afternoon service, the faithful have been mostly going to the "Three Hours" service in one or other of the city churches. I preached an old sermon on S. John xix.12,16 making a study of Pontius Pilate, as he is disclosed in the record of the Passion.