The Henson Journals

[468]

Thursday, August 3rd, 1916.

731st day

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A letter from Dr Tait told me that his son–in–law had been killed in France. Thus Dorothy is a widow with a baby boy for comfort. Ella returned unexpectedly a day earlier than we had supposed. Roger Casement was hanged as a traitor this morning. No traitor ever deserved that fate more amply. He was caught red–handed in treason: no element of moral squalor was absent from his crime. The capture of his private journal disclosed the fact that the traitor was also privately infamous. He was admitted into the Popish Church shortly before his execution, and died piously. Had he died three years ago his name would have been placed among the names of the great benefactors of mankind. He would have been numbered with Wilberforce & Livingstone as a champion of the oppressed. Today his name is sunken in shame. Cardinal Mercier illustrates the same dramatic uncertainty more happily. Had he died three years ago he had only been remembered as the victim of Father Tyrrell's satire in "Medievalism": today, he is justly honoured as the very model of a patriotic prelate, & his name will pass into history as that of one of the heroes of Belgium's passion. Verily one should call no man happy until he is dead. What profound wisdom underlies our Saviour's admonition, "Judge not"! We know too little to make judgement reasonable: we can never know enough to justify praise or blame.

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