The Henson Journals

[436]

Tuesday, August 22nd, 1916.

750th day

I wrote to Budworth anent Morgan's communication, & then made an attempt to write the Article, but with no success. After lunch Olive walked with me to the golf–course & through Houghall Wood. I attended Mattins and Evensong.

Baxter's "Holy Commonwealth" (1619) is curious reading. He says good things sometimes e.g. "It is a dead Commonwealth that is without the magistrate: and it is a mad commonwealth that is without a Church & Ministry". He has a touching belief in the civic competence of ministers: "If Divinity be true and good, then certainly the students of it are likely to be the wisest and the best of men: for the object ennobleth, and the employment perfecteth the faculties". Experience provides a woeful commentary on such brave words. Baxter was ever too much influenced by the assumption that good men must also be wise men:

"It somewhat moved me to see what the Parties on both sides were, of whom I will now say no more, but that it were a wonder if so many humble honest Christians, fearful of sinning, and praying for direction, should be all mistaken in so weighty a case, & so many Dam me's all in the right". (p. 481)

I suspect that vast numbers chose their side in the Civil War in that way.

[434]

After dinner Olive sang for three quarters of an hour very beautifully. Her voice has a fulness and richness which are rarely heard in amateurs: & she produces it without any straining, a circumstance which makes audience delightful. Then I read poetry for half an hour; and then two special constables called to warn us that lights were visible from the Deanery. There is so much glass in this house that complete darkening is not very easy to effect.

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