The Henson Journals

[597]

Monday, January 17th, 1916.

532nd day

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I wrote a long letter on the Temperance v. Total abstinence question to a brewer, Mr H. A. Blanch (Hillfield, Stroud), who wrote to me, enclosing a letter which had been sent to him by a local Dissenting minister on the same subject. Then I occupied myself with the works of Robertson of Brighton.

Kathleen went home in the course of the forenoon. I gave her a copy of "War–time Sermons", & we parted in much affection. Ella went with her as far as Newcastle, & left my watch to be repaired by one of the silver smiths of that city.

Gilbert Darwin came to lunch, and then walked with me for an hour. He returns to Winchester this week.

I ran through Robertson's "Corinthians" rather hastily. It is in many respects a very remarkable work. The intense egotism of the great preacher, temperamental but rendered acute by his chronic suffering, & encouraged to give itself free expression by the habit of that generation, colours the pages. Particularly in his discussion of the 'thorn in the flesh', and his ardent description of St Paul, one cannot avoid the conclusion that he sees both through the medium of his own experiences. Knowling sent across Pfleiderer's "Development of Theology" which includes some very laudatory references to Robertson, whom the German Scholar declares to have been 'equal to (Maurice & Kingsley) in nobility of character and their superior in the wealth and depth of his mind'. This is the higher praise when it is remembered how comparatively small was the output of Robertson compared with that of the two Christian Socialist leaders.

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