The Henson Journals

[104]

Tuesday, January 2nd, 1917.

883rd day

A violent tempest raged through the night, & subsided as the day drew on. I started the day by drawing cheques for my super–tax, and for the taxes on my house. These two items alone amount to nearly £80. And I shall have to pay ten time that sum as income tax. Truly the Kaiser has laid us all under heavy obligations. The post brought me a very interesting letter from Harold Knowling, who is evidently getting along well at Salonika. Also from 'Nimbus' saying that they still cherish the hope that Reggie may be a prisoner in Germany. Also from Ernest, who hopes to come here tomorrow. (Geordie Gore arrived about 9 p.m. ^last night^ after an uncomfortable journey marked by every conceivable inconvenience of lost connexions and dilatory trains.) I paid the wages. The 'Times' prints my letter on its front page under the heading "The Capitular Foundations". On the whole, I think it is worth while putting forward the suggestion that, if the capitular revenues are to be alienated from their present uses, there is more fitness in devoting them to clerical education than to multiplying bishops.

[102]

That monster, CUSTOM, who all sense doth eat,

Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair & good,

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of abstinence easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy;

For USE almost can change the stamp of nature.

Shakespeare "Hamlet"

"Observations of some Specialities of Divine Providence in the Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, written with his own hand" – this most interesting and informing piece is printed in Vol. 1 of Wynter's Edition of Hall's Works. There is a remarkable example of praying against an individual mentioned in this narrative. In his first parish, Halsted, Hall found himself opposed & thwarted by 'a witty and bold atheist, one Mr Lilly' whose influence over his patron, Sir Robert Drury, was equally powerful and mischievous. Hall 'bent his prayer against him, beseeching God daily that He wd be pleased to remove by some means or other, that apparent hinderance of my faithful labours'. The prayers were answered, 'for this malicious man, going hastily up to London, to exasperate my patron against me, was then & there swept away by the pestilence, & never returned to do any further mischief'. One feels that there must have been another side to this episode. Mr Lilly's account of the Vicar of Halsted would have been worth having.

[100]

Was Bp. Hall's little treatise (he was then Dean of Worcester) "Via Media: the Way of Peace in the Five busy Articles, commonly known by the name Arminius" the origin of the now conventional description of Anglicanism as 'the Via Media'? This treatise was published in 1622.

An earlier treatise, "Quo vadis? A just censure of travel, as it is commonly undertaken by the gentlemen of our Nation", was written on his return from France in 1616. It is dedicated to Edward Lord Denny, Baron of Waltham, and is full of interest. He argues earnestly against the fashion of sending youths to travel on the continent. Their health was impaired; their morals corrupted; their religion often lost. "Whether it be the envy or the pusillanimity of us English, we are still ready to undervalue our own and admire foreigners". He maintains that the student at home can gain from books a much larger & sounder knowledge of foreign countries than the traveller abroad can gain from his own observations. "Let him but travel through the world of books, & he shall easily be able to out–talk that tongue whose feet have walked the farthest". He describes the arts & crafts by which the Jesuits attacked the Protestant religion of the English traveller. "No man setteth foot upon their coast which may not presently sing with the Psalmist, "They come about me like bees". He urges Authority to protect the English youth from their own folly. "Since then we have no more wit or care than to be willingly guilty of our own shame, O that the hands of supreme authority would be pleased to lock us within our own doors, & to keep the keys at their own girdle". Both the "Via Media" and the "Quo Vadis?" are printed in vol. IX of Wynter's edition of Hall's Works'.

---