The Henson Journals

[710]

Tuesday, March 28th, 1916.

603rd day

Another sudden change of weather during the night. There was frost on the ground, & a biting wind in the cloisters when I went to the service at 8 a.m. Bishop Quirk celebrated. I worked at the 4th sermon of my course on "Christian Liberty", and made but little progress. Miss Liddell came to lunch. I walked around Houghall Wood with logic, & annexed Bayley on the road. His brother has been at Verdun, & writes cheerily. He estimates the French losses to be about half the German, but very heavy even so. I attended Evensong, and afterwards showed Major Gwynn & his wife, with Mrs Copland over the cathedral. A parcel of books arrived from York, without the volume of the Surtees Society, which I had most wanted. That was already sold. But it contained Robert Hall's "An Apology for the Freedom of the Press & for General Liberty with remarks on Bishop Horsley's Sermon on Jany 30th 1793". This includes the amazing reference to that eminent prelate in the preface, which was removed from later editions by the author as "not quite consistent either with the spirit of Christianity, or with the reverence due to departed genius". It certainly isn't. But it has a value nevertheless as showing the depth of hatred which was ordinarily latent in a Dissenting preacher of the French Revolutionary period. Imagine the prayers, lessons, & hymns leading up to this:

"When we reflect on the qualities which distinguish this prelate, that venom that hisses, & that meanness that creeps, the malice that attends him to the sanctuary, & pollutes the altar, we feel a similar perplexity with that which springs from the origin of evil".

Robert Hall was an educated and pious man, and he could allow himself to use such language about a very distinguished man, who was also an eminent Christian minister!

[708]

Tuesday, March 28th, 1916.

603rd day

A brilliantly fine morning, but very cold. I celebrated the Holy Commn at 8 a.m. in S. Gregory's Chapel. There were 8 communicants (all women) besides the clergy. I finished the sermon on Christian Liberty, & then was fetched by Bayley to receive at the Treasury the four members of the Royal Commission on Public Records (Sir Frederick Pollock Bt, Firth, Tedder, & Hubert Hall). After they had inspected the documents in the Treasury, the lunched at the Deanery. Also there came to lunch Cruickshank & Turner, Knowling & his niece, Bayley, Hughes, & Culley. These with ourselves, & Mrs Copland, made up a party of fourteen. After lunch I shewed them over the house & the Sudbury Library. Finally, I took them to the Porter's Lodge, & shewed them the Cuthbert relics preserved there in the Strong room. I attended Evensong, and also the little Lenten service at 6.30 p.m. when Hughes preached an excellent little sermon.

The newspapers report a terrific snow–storm in the midlands. The telegraph lines were broken down: trains held up: & everything greatly disorganized. This strange weather must have an influence on the War, arresting operations, & enormously increasing every kind of difficulty.

I have read two sermons, which Ernest wrote & preached in Canada, & which he sent to me as specimens of his composition. They ae extraordinarily immature & crude, but they are not ill–expressed, and they are marked by sanity & good sense. It is extremely regrettable that he shd have been set to preaching at a time when he ought to have been learning: & it will be very difficult for him to recover from the consequences of that mistake: but his persistence in going though McGill show that he has good stuff in him.

---