The Henson Journals

[697]

Monday, March 6th, 1916.

581st day

The snow–storms still continue: but in spite of them the Zeppelins came here yesterday, and got across much country. I spent the forenoon in writing a letter to the "Spectator", headed

"Sectarianism & Secularisation", à propos of the proposal, which the editor approves ecstatically, and which the War Office seems to encourage, to organize battalions on a sect. basis. This appears all one with the gradual but sure secularisation of the Army as such. After lunch I took Ernest for a walk in wind and snow. He gives rather a bad account of the sexual morality of the officers, and thinks that irregularities are winked at, or even encouraged, by some of the older officers, who probably represent a tradition of license which has been generally outgrown. The amount of venereal disease is certainly disgracefully great. I attended Evensong in the Cathedral. Ralph arrived from Aberdeen, where he delivered the Murtle Lecture, & preached yesterday. He, as everybody else, is delighted with Sir George Adam Smith. I dined with Major Sharp [Sharpe] and the Officers instructing the young fry in Hatfield Hall. All these soldiers have been at the front, & returned home wounded. They have strange experiences to relate, and they relate them with a very delightful modesty. Major Sharp has had much service in Africa, & speaks with intelligence of the fauna. The rats in the trenches climbed trees when the German gas–attacks were made, & the nightingales sang through these horrors! It is suggested that the hawks have been scared away, & that their normal victims, the smaller birds, find the vague dangers of human warfare comparatively undisturbing! I had a good deal of talk with Ralph before he turned in. He is evidently more than ever out of harmony with his colleagues, & the Cathedral traditions!

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