The Henson Journals

[387]

Tuesday, September 14th, 1915.

407th day

I issued the memoranda to the canons, accompanying them with letters to the two absentees – Quirk and Cruickshank. The morning post brought me an interesting letter from Caröe, giving an account of last Wednesday's air–raid. It was extremely destructive. I took Robertson into the Cathedral where we fell in with Bilson, and had the advantage of his explanations when we inspected the discoveries in the triforium of the Choir. The pedestals of Carileph's windows have been uncovered under the 13th century work. We mounted the scaffolding & looked at the painting on the plaister. It is little more than a mélange of colour. We went into the Tower to examine the vaulting, which is much twisted with settlement. We attended Evensong, & afterwards were motored to Bishop Auckland by Lillingston & his wife. The Bishop was at home, & gave us tea. I gathered from the holy man's conversation that he is deeply bitten by the angelic legend but beyond giving him some wholesome mild shocks, I let him be.

[389]

It is gravely disconcerting to discover that the leaders of the hierarchy are as greedily credulous as Salvationists or Neapolitan peasants. They seem so enamoured of the flattering marvels (for what could be more flattering to human self–conceit than to be honoured by such extraordinary tokens of Divine favour?) that they never give a thought to the vicious anarchy to which they are reducing the Divine government of the universe. One is driven to think that the "mentality" of the pious people is quite different from that of ordinary folk. The Bishop pointed out to me that the objective reality of such supernatural manifestations was not invalidated by the circumstance that they were not perceptible to ordinary eyes, since the Bible made it clear that only the spiritually–minded could see such things! I gravely replied that perhaps in that case it were desirable to determine the sense in which "objective reality" were used in discussion: & I reminded him that men were already connecting the "Angels at Mons" with the angels of the Resurrection. If we insist that the appearances of the risen Christ can, & ought to, give credibility to the Stories of the appearances of Angels in France, we sink the former to the level of the latter. I cannot doubt that much active scepticism with respect to the Resurrection narratives will grow from the eager credulity of the religious public with respect to these narratives from the Front. One might suspect that a condition of our alliance with France & Russia was the pooling of national beliefs, as well as of material resources. The Church Papers discuss the alleged appearances of Joan of Arc with the utmost gravity, & even educated people speak darkly of the weight of evidence for such apparitions!

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Issues and controversies: Angels of Mons