The Henson Journals

[18]

Monday, October 13th, 1913.

The papers are more than usually interesting. Lloyd George opens his "Land campaign" or "Land crusade" by orations at Bedford, which will add nothing to his reputation. They are verbose, violent, & practically void beyond even his own precedents! Redmond repudiates Winston Churchill's suggestion of separate treatment for Ireland.

A liner is reported to be burned at sea: most of the passengers (foreign emigrants) were saved by a small fleet of steamers summoned by wireless telegraphy.

[19] [symbol]

Politics & the Pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty & civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave & of the character they assume. Wholly unacquainted with the world, in which they are so fond of meddling, & inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they excite. Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions & animosities of mankind.

Burke, 'Reflections', Works, III, p. 246

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