The Henson Journals

[16]

Wednesday, March 7th, 1917.

947th day

An unpleasant day, very cold & gusty with intermittent snow showers. I received the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. & attended Mattins & Evensong. I worked at the C.T. sermon. George came in, & tidied up my room. The Speaker sent me some notes on the Warden's career in Parliament. Raleigh also sent some small beginning of a Life of the Warden which he had made. I am considerably annoyed to notice in the "Times" the announcement that Miss Maud [Maude] Royden is to conduct the services in the "City Temple" on March 18th, the Sunday next preceding that on which I have promised to preach there. 'Surely an enemy hath done this' in order to bring ridicule upon me. Happily the Bishops have entangled themselves so hopelessly with that shameless Feminist that they cannot decently do more than chuckle furtively!

[14]

'That which invests war, in spite of all the evils that attend it, with a certain moral grandeur, is the heroic self–sacrifice it elicits. With perhaps, the single exception of the Church, it is the sphere in which mercenary motives have least sway, in which performance is least weighed & measured by strict obligation, in which a disinterested enthusiasm has most scope.'

Lecky

'When a cross was said to have appeared miraculously to Constantine, with an inscription announcing the victory of the Milvian bridge; when the same holy sign, adorned with the sacred monogram, was carried in the forefront of the Roman armies: when the nails of the cross, which Helena had brought from Jerusalem, were converted by the emperor into a helmet, & into bits for his war horse, it was evident that a great change was passing over the once pacific spirit of the Church.'

Lecky

'As late as the sixteenth century, it is said that in some parts of Ireland children were baptized by immersion; but the right arms of the males were carefully held above the water, in order that, not having been dipped in the sacred stream, they might strike the more deadly blow.'

Lecky

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