The Henson Journals

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Low Sunday, April 19th, 1914.

I am to address an assembly of men this afternoon, and I propose to speak on the hackneyed but ever important subject of Lord's Day Observance. The argument on paper is irresistible, but in real life it fails to carry the weight proper to its strength. Behind the apostolic institution lay assumptions which have vanished from Christian minds: the circumstances which gave value & delight to the weekly assemblies have disappeared, the old fervours of faith & charity are extinguished. We have a moribund convention, where they had a fresh & vital action. We timidly discuss the evidences for the Lord's Resurrection, half doubtful the while whether they suffice: they joyously proclaimed the fact, & boldly argued from it. The world outside the church had no attractions for those first believers, who drew together in their assemblies as desert pilgrims to an oasis. We carry our reluctant steps out of the glad sunshine & green country into the gloom of the churches, which cast on our spirits the chill of a tomb! They sought & found fresh oracles of God on the lips of apostles & prophets: we yawn & fret under the hollow phrasings & empty sophisms of preachers!

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I went to the cathedral at 8 a.m. & received the Holy Communion. Also, I attended Mattins, & heard an excellent discourse from Knowling.

Ella & I motored to Dunston–on–Tyne, where I was pledged to address an assembly of men in the parish church. We arrived nearly ten minutes after time, having been hindered by the badness of the road. There was a goodly company of men filling the little church. I spoke for 40 minutes on the Observance of the Lord's Day. Then we had tea with the Vicar (McIntosh) & his wife, and motored home arriving soon after 6 p.m.

I wrote letters to Ernest Rudling, Reggie Woodyear, & Cruickshank.

Dr Johnson: 'Shakespeare had Latin enough to grammaticise his English'. (Boswell. v. 157)

Morley (Miscellanies vol. I. p. 211f) has some observations on Shakespeare. He says that 'the inspiring force' was political & social in Shakespeare, Milton, & Byron.

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Lord Shaftesbury 'Characteristics' (vol. 1. p. 179–80) commends Shakespeare for his morality:

'Notwithstanding his natural rudeness, his unpolished style, & antiquated phrase & wit, his want of method and coherence, & his deficiency in almost all the graces and ornaments of this kind of writings, yet by the justness of his moral, the aptness of many of his descriptions, & the plain & natural turn of several of his characters, he pleases his audience, & often gains their ear without a single bribe from Luxury or Vice'.

Lord Chesterfield Letters CXLVII (p. 220) writes thus to his son.

"If Shakespeare's genius had been cultivated, those beauties, which we so justly admire in him, wd. have been undisgraced by those extravagancies, & that nonsense, with which they are frequently accompanied".

Boswell (Life of Dr Johnson. ii. 156)

"A blind, indiscriminate admiration of Shakespeare had exposed the British nation to the ridicule of foreigners. Johnson, by candidly admitting the faults of his poet, had the more credit in bestowing on him deserved & indisputable praise: & doubtless none of all his panegyrists have done him half so much honour".

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Scheme of Shakespeare Sermon.

Text: Ecclesiastes iii. 10–13

1. A sermon as part of the commemoration Festivities implies 2 assumptions (α) That Shakespeare's genius is from Above (β) That his writings are morally wholesome.
2. These assumptions not unchallenged in Shakespeare's age. Puritan objections to the drama. Puritan attitude really unsound: Calvinism, a fighting creed, inadequate for normal society. Elizabethan literature belongs to the close of her reign, after the fighting was over.
3. In what sense are Shakespeare's writings morally wholesome? "Art for art's sake" – a truism & a fallacy. Nature itself is moral. The Artist is an interpreter of life, not a mere photographer. He sees his facts 'sub specie oeternitatis'.
4. The text may serve as a description of Shakespeare's creed. G. [sic] S. Paul's counsel to the Philippians, and Shakespeare's doctrine of self–respect. Dr Johnson's view.
5. Genius: the faculty of observation highly developed. Shakespeare's writings an index to his experiences, & his character. His 'experiencing nature'. An emotion of personal experience thrills the reader of his works.
6. His feeling for the poor. In this respect he resembles Ecclesiastes. The soliloquy in Hamlet suffused with Christian feeling.

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1. Shakespeare's personal religion. He is inconceivable outside of Christendom. Dr Gardiner thinks that he shaped the churchmanship of the epoch.
2. Resemblance between S. & Ecclesiastes, & one considerable contrast. Shakespeare the prophet of Patriotism, & yet the most cosmopolitan of poets. Sermon ends with some lines from John of Gaunt's rhapsody on England.

this, dear, dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,

Like to a tenement, or pelting farm:

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

With inky blots, & rotten parchment bonds:

That England, that was wont to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

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