The Henson Journals

[485]

Thursday, November 11th, 1915.

465th day

The strong winds of the last two days have brought down nearly all the leaves, & reduced the country to a winter–like nakedness: but the sky was blue, & the sun bright, so that some incorrigibly optimistic birds were moved to essay some modest singing. I walked with Gee through Houghall Wood, enjoying both his conversation and the views of the Cathedral. I revised and extended the Cambridge Sermon. After dinner I wrote letters, & then read Fawkes's article aloud to my wife. He lays it down as 'matter of certainty "that one of the results of the war will be a notable weakening of and falling away from the Roman Catholic Church'. He bases this expectation on the offence taken in France & Belgium especially at the Pope's neutrality. But I think he doesn't allow enough for the crude emotionalism wakened by the fearful experiences of the War, & the wave of superstition which will sweep over Europe in the wake of so much misery & suffering. Probably the more distant consequences of the War will be unfavourable to organized Christianity, but the immediate effects will give new strength to the Churches, & especially to the least–rationalist of them. The newspapers report another dreadful outrage – the torpedoeing of an Italian liner by an Austrian or German submarine. Among the victims are said to be a number of Americans. This circumstance can hardly fail to renew the sentiments of repugnance which were so loudly expressed when the 'Lusitania' was destroyed: but beyond explosions of indignation in the newspapers it is hardly probable that anything will happen. The Americans give a positive value to moral protests forcibly expressed. "They think they shall be heard for their much speaking". But they acknowledge no practical obligations as implicit in their speech.

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