The Henson Journals

[456]

Saturday, August 12th, 1916.

740th day

I presided at a brief chapter to sanction an incumbent's pension. I wrote to Carissima and Ernest Rudling. I picked up a young soldier with his female relations in the Cathedral, and spent an hour in shewing them about the place. I attended Mattins & Evensong. I finished reading "England & the Catholic Church under Elizabeth" by Arnold Oskar Meyer. The book has been translated from the German by a London Oratorian, & is published by the Roman Catholic publishers, Kegan Paul & Co. The Author is 'not himself a catholic' but his work is so agreeable to Papists that it is issued with official sanction. It deals with an aspect of our religious history which is very little observed, & it seems to be written with ample knowledge. I found it extremely suggestive & informing.

"Reformation and counter–reformation synchronized in England. Movements which followed each other on the continent, & consequently did not collide with the full shock of their first encounter, appeared simultaneously on the scene in England, & the result was a life & death struggle. In this conflict the puritans were, so to speak, the rocks against which the waves of counter–reformation beat in vain" (v. p.7).

This is true, & illuminating.

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