The Henson Journals

[514]

2nd Sunday after Trinity, July 2nd, 1916.

699th day

Being wakeful during the night I lit my candle and read Plutarch's Life of Pericles. It is admirably rendered into English by one Perrin. There is a striking account of the diverse interpretation given to the one–horned ram by Lampon the seer, & by Anaxagoras the philosopher. The first found it to portend the mastery of Athens by a single ruler – Pericles. The last 'had the skull cut in two', & the natural cause of the monstrosity thereby demonstrated. But Plutarch maintains that both were right, & reconcileable with one another:

"Now there was nothing, in my opinion, to prevent both of them, the naturalist & the seer, from being in the right of the matter: the one correctly divined the cause, the other the object or purpose. It was the proper province of the one to observe why anything happens, & how it comes to be what it is; of the other to declare for what purpose anything happens, & what it means. And those who declare that the discovery of the cause, in any phenomenon, does away with the meaning, do not perceive that they are doing away not only with divine portents, but also with artificial tokens, such as the ringing of gongs, the language of fire–signals, and the shadows of the pointers on sun–dials. Each of these has been made, through some causal adaptation, to have some meaning."

This is acute & suggestive, but it is consistent with a purely subjective explanation of portents & prodigies. These are created such by the mind: & need have no other authority. This, however, still leaves open the question, Was the mental act itself self–originated? or did it rather result from an impulse received from without? On the answer to these questions the validity of a religious reading of human life will turn.

[512]

Copies of "War–Time Sermons" sent to:

1.	Ella
2.	Marion
3.	Lady Scarbrough
4.	Ranee
5.	Mary Radford
6.	Arthur
[check] 7.	The Archbishop of C.
8.	The Bishop of Durham
[check] 9.	The Bishop of Bristol
[check] 10.	The Earl of Durham
[check] 11.	Lord Stamfordham.
[check] 12.	General Gaisford.
13.	Archbishop Söderblom.
14.	Bishop Lawrence.
15.	Prof: Edward Moore.
16.	President Richmond.
17.	Bishop Mann.
18.	Prof. Williston Walker
19.	Prof. Max Kellner
20.	Dr Symonds
[check] 21.	Lord Barnard
[check] 22.	Prof. Dicey.
[check] 23.	Lady Charnwood.
[check] 24.	Miss Mundella.
[check] 25.	Gee.
26.	Aubrey.
27.	M. Loisy
[check] 28.	Bp. of Jarrow
[check] 29.	Lillingston
30.	Lord Balfour of Burleigh
31.	Sir Edward Russell
[check] 32.	Sir Thos Raleigh
33.	The Dean of Westminster.
[check] 34.	Watkins
[check] 35.	Knowling
[check] 36.	Cruickshank
[check] 37.	Culley
[check] 38.	Hughes
[check] 39.	Dennett
[check] 40.	May
[check] 41.	Bayley.
[check] 42.	Col. Darwin
[check] 43.	Capt. Rogerson
[check] 44.	The Deputy Mayor.
[check] 45.	The Mayor
46.	F. F. K.

[510]

We rose early enough to go [to] the chapel & there receive the Holy Communion. Lord Normanby celebrated being vested in "white vestments". The service as set forth in the Prayer–book was faithfully followed. After breakfast I talked with Cyril Liddell until church time. We motored to Lamesley, and attended service. The service was musical Mattins, & the Holy Communion with sermon. We left with the Choir after the Prayer for the Church Militant. The Vicar officiated without assistance, save that Lord Ravensworth read the lessons. The sermon from the text, "God is Light, & in Him is no darkness at all", was very brief, not more than 10 minutes I should think. On our return to the Castle we found the papers, & learned that the long–expected British offensive had actually begun. Lord Normanby and I walked in the park, discussing ecclesiastical questions. As we approached the Castle on our return, a large heron rose from the little weed–covered lake: possibly it had come over from Raby. General Montgomery & his wife & daughter came to lunch: also Gerald Liddell, Lord R.'s eldest son. After lunch the General showed us a plan of the scene of the advance in France, & some most interesting photographs of the German lines. These he was good enough to explain to us. We all walked in the Park before tea, and again afterwards. I had much conversation with Gerald Liddell, whom I found very agreeable & informing. He gave me rather a depressing account of the officers of the new army, as he had seen them at Havre. The notion that every youth in khaki is a stainless Galahad will hardly commend itself to those who have seen the young men running eagerly after the French harlots, & filling the hospitals scandalously. The chaplains seem to be curiously helpless: and some of them (non–Anglicans mostly if not wholly) are as scandalous as the officers!

[508]

The Day.

Twelve mailéd men sat drinking late.

The wine was red as blood.

Cried one, "How long then must we wait

Ere we shall thunder at the gate,

And crush the cursèd brood?"

Twelve men of iron, drinking late,

Strike hands, & pledge a cup of hate;

"The Day!"

Twelve men met at the day's decline –

Eleven and One beside.

Their every thought, a thought benign,

Yet One – the One we call divine –

Next day was crucified.

Twelve men of God raised up the sign

And pledged in consecrated wine:

"The Day!"

Now nineteen hundred years have past:

The day – whose shall it be at last,

Oh Christ?

Charles Alexander Richmond

Union College, Schenectady.

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