The Henson Journals

[455]

Saturday, October 23rd, 1915.

446th day

I wrote letters, & made some more notes for the Manchester speech, & then, after lunch, bade farewell to Jim, who returns immediately to the front, & took my journey to Manchester, where I arrived about 7.15 p.m. & drove at once to the Deanery. Lord William Cecil was also staying here until Monday. There was a dinner party – Miers, the Vice Chancellor of the University was the only person whose name I remembered. Conversation inevitably turned to the War, & I soon found myself embarked on an energetic defence of Haldane against his extremer critics. We discussed the vehement demand for "reprisals", which is likely to be greatly stimulated by the judicial murder of Miss Edith Cavel [Cavell], an English nurse in Brussels, which has just been reported in the papers. It is full of melancholy suggestiveness that nobody seems really to think that Christianity has, or ought to have, any bearing on our attitude towards Germany.

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