The Henson Journals

[12]

Saturday, March 10th, 1917.

950th day

I am better, but still a wreck. After breakfast in bed, I read my letters & the papers, then I got up & went to my study. Beyond writing a number of letters I found myself unequal to work. Ella showed Harold over both the Cathedral and the Castle. I received a long pencilled letter form Ernest Rudling telling me that he had at last gained his "wings", & was about to fly to France for active service. The latest accounts from the front indicate that the Germans are making a great effort to recover their superiority in the air. We admit to having lost 23 machines in the recent fighting: the Germans assert that the losses of the Allies amount to no less than 56 machines.

[10]

"The Church, like the ark of Noah, is worth saving not for the sake of the unclean beasts & vermin that almost filled it – and probably made most noise & clamour in it – but for the little corner of rationality, that was much distressed by the stink within it as by the tempest without" – Warburton.

This is a characteristically 18th century version of the doctrine of the saving remnant!

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