The Henson Journals

[305]

Saturday, July 24th, 1915.

355th day

Somebody writes from Scotland to ask me to write something about Reunion by way of preparing 'for the return–thanksgiving services, when our poor men return, who have been so united in their prayers & religious services "on the field".' No doubt they have: but not those of them who here at home obstruct every approach to fellowship. These make a great figure in the ecclesiastical world which looks to the Lambeth Conferences, & reads the Church Times: but their following among the sections of the people, which provide the rank & file of the British Armies, is not considerable. When the war is over they will return to their position of hypocritical supremacy: & we shall find that, so far as they are concerned, nothing has changed. And, indeed, why should it be otherwise? The War has disturbed men's imagination by its unprecedented scale & horror, but it has disclosed no new factor.

After breakfast we walked into the City, & called on Gerald Marshall, & on Hine–Haycock. The former was full of the new ardour for 'prayer–wheels': the latter was cumbered with the parcels & cares which befall a man on the near approach of matrimony. He is to be married in a few days. He expresses a proper disgust of the episcopal 'prayer–wheels'. Then I walked to the Athanaeum, and read the papers. After lunch Ralph & I walked along the Embankment to the Club, where I remained for about 2 hours: & then walked back to St. Paul's. Just outside the Cathedral I fell in with Linetta, and walked up the Embankment with her. Thus I traversed that noisy route no less than 3 times, which perhaps may amount to as much as 8 or 9 miles.

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