The Henson Journals

[586]

Sunday after Ascension, June 4th, 1916.

671st day

"Jesus, the living, answered and said to His disciples: "Blessed is he who is crucified unto the world, and whom the world did not crucify". (From the Coptic)

The author of this logion could hardly have meant by the striking phrase 'whom the world did not crucify' nothing more than a reference to the crucifixion of the body, for martyrdom was rather held to be a matter for solemn congratulations than for regret: but he must have meant rather that death in life which the 'love of the world' implies. Thus the apostle says of the worldly–minded widow that "she that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth". The reference to that cruellest of all methods of capital punishment, crucifixion, carries the same suggestion as that of the Puritan phrase, (which may also be patristic) "the devil's martyrs". Modern novelists, and satirists both ancient & modern, dwell on the worry & labour implied in a life of fashion. This is the secular analogue of the apostolic idea.

I went to the cathedral at 8 a.m., & there celebrated the Holy Communion. There were but few communicants, partly owing to the proximity of the Festivals, & partly to the dull dampness of the morning. A letter from Gow tells me that his youngest son, Roderick, was killed in that disastrous sea–fight. I wrote to condole with Gow. I preached at Mattins on "the secularisation of Christianity". The movement of people leaving the church, when the Preacher mounts the pulpit, is very scandalous. I attended Evensong, and afterwards walked with Ernest in the cloisters, and in the cathedral, for the rain hindered us from walking beyond the protection of the college. The vaulting of the nave now looks very solemn & beautiful.

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