The Henson Journals

[361]

13th Sunday after Trinity, August 29th, 1915.

391st day

Strip from it the local references, & could one find a nobler prayer or hymn than this which Farnell quotes from the Babylonians? It is addressed to Marduk.

"The Lord, peerless in might, the King of grace, the Ruler of the lands, that bringeth peace in heaven, that through his glance overthroweth the mighty. Lord, thy seat is Babylon, thy crown Borsippa. Thy thought, O Lord, passeth over the wide heavens, & with thine eyes thou beholdest the affliction of men, through the anger of thy countenance thou spreadest lamentation, & thou takest him captive who regardeth thee not and setteth himself up against thee. Through thy greatest countenance thou showest men favour, thou lettest them see the light and they proclaim thy Righteousness. O Lord of the lands, Light of Izizi, thou who proclaimest grace, who is it whose mouth doth not tell of thy Righteousness, who doth not praise thy majesty, & glorify thy lordship? … Look down upon the hands raised in prayer to thee. Grant favour to thy city Babylon … and turn thy countenance upon thy house, & give help to the sons of Babylon & all thy people."

[v. Farnell "Evolution of Religion", p. 223]

Most of our modern prayers would retain, & even emphasize, the local references, or substitute for the 'local' another not less irrational limitation the ecclesiastical; and, as is notorious, many English Churchmen are at this moment in revolt against the Archbishop because in his 'Kikuyu' statement he had seemed to stretch a little wider the range of our ecclesiastical bond! For these people, the Great War has no spiritual lessons. They learn nothing, and they forget nothing. The Incense of their local shrines shuts out the light of the broad Heaven!

[363]

I preached to the troops on "Friendship", reading as the lesson that exquisite passage which contains David's Lamentation for Jonathan. The men seemed to me more than usually attentive. Cruickshank preached at Mattins on "The Servant of Jehovah": & disfigured his sermon by a gibe at Anglo–Israelitism as 'a spasm of insanity which almost makes one despair of the human intellect'! This was unnecessary, & irrelevant. I celebrated after Mattins, & was discomposed by May's apparent inability to make the response in a tone above a whisper! I spoke to him afterwards on the subject: & he pleaded a bad cold: I was relieved for I had feared it was conscience!! After Evensong Ella & I essayed a walk with Logic, but the rain coming on sent us home again. Then I wrote letters to Marion, Caröe, & Gilbert.

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Issues and controversies: Kikuyu