The Henson Journals

[124]

Thursday, December 28th, 1916.

878th day

Innocents Day – the Festival of the Unconscious Martyrs – makes an appeal of singular power & pathos in the midst of War, which has brought infinite wretchedness to the millions of peace–loving folk in so many lands. Innocents day – the Festival of Children – comes home to the considering mind at a time when the wastage of grown men threatens the world with the most fearful of all famines – a shortage of men. A generation has "dropped out", and we must shorten the youth of the growing boys in order that the 'lacuna' created by War may be bridged over. It is a very lamentable reflection.

I went to the Cathedral, & celebrated the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. The post brings a letter from Lord Durham, in which an attitude is disclosed towards President Wilson, more candid than diplomatic:

"I expect President Wilson & most neutrals of a desire to destroy our supremacy at sea, & that they will advocate a big reduction of our Navy, if the Germans promise to reduce their standing army. Edward Grey's most unhappy allusion to future discussion about sea–power gives Wilson a cue. I believe British & Japanese Fleets are all that protect us from Wilson declaring himself a Pro–German. Whether I am right or wrong, I hate the man!"

Probably this view of the Transatlantic Peacemaker is very general among Englishmen. I long for peace, but I myself feel a kind of nausea when I read Wilson's sermonettes! Moreover, I think that there are signs that the world has taken his measure, & concluded that the man who is "too proud to fight" when Right is in extremis has nothing worth having to give.

[122]

'That mankind is a community, that we all stand in a relation to each other, that there is a public end and interest of society which each particular is obliged to promote, is the sum of morals.'

Bp. Butler.

The Children's Carol Service, which Hughes and Culley had taken such pains to arrange, was spoiled so far as the attendance of children went, by the rain, which fell precisely at the critical time! Thus the number of children was disappointingly small, but the service was pleasing, the procession of the choirs and children round the Cathedral not without a certain impressiveness. The clergy of several of the parish churches walked in procession. But there is a paralysis of futility and apprehension on everything just now, most of all on one's heart. Shall we ever be able to feel keen about anything again? I attended Evensong, afterwards went with Lillingston to the Porch, saw his plate safely bestowed in the strong room. Then I wrote to Raleigh, to Ernest, and to Captain Rogerson. The last has sent me a cutting from "The Field" in which it was 'proved' that the Germans were racially historical [sic] abominable. I told him that the ethnical hinterland of all the modern European nations was the same, that none could afford to throw anthropological stones at any other. After dinner I read aloud most part of the translation of Tacitus' "Germania", in order to shew Linetta that the Roman historian had not drawn a repulsive picture, but that if he meant to 'scare off' anybody, it was probably his own nation, whose vices he satirized obliquely by the picture of German virtues.

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