The Henson Journals
Fri 25 May 1917
Volume 21, Page 55
[55]
Friday, May 25th, 1917.
1026th day
George came in before breakfast to tell me about his experiences at Liverpool. He is evidently very pleased with himself, but with what measure of justification it is not quite easy to decide. He brought a letter from the Firm, saying that, if there was a vacancy before his 17th birthday in Nov. they would take him, provided he had successfully mastered certain things of which he is now supremely ignorant, but advising him to start on a sailing ship, where the training was superior. All this is rather difficult to focus. I must talk about it to Dennett. Dennett came in to seem me in the course of the morning. He is concerned on the point whether the usher Brown, who has been having German measles, & is reported to be consumptive, ought, as a matter of hygienic prudence, to continue in his position at the choir school. This is a grave matter. I thought it well to write to Dr Smith, and ask him two questions viz: 1) Is the said Brown consumptive? 2) Ought he to hold office in the choir school? I attended Mattins & Evensong. In the course of my walk with Logic, I lighted on Capt. Apperley & had some talk with him. He thinks that there is no substance in the vehement argument of Lords D'Abernon, Durham & Rosebery in defence of horse–racing: & holds that the country would lose nothing by its total suppression.
From the Annual Report of the Diocesan Board of Missions, I take the following:
"The Bishop of Lahore reports that he has come across no signs at all that the fact of Christian Nations being at war has been a stumbling block to the non–Christians. The sense that our cause is just, & the War God's War, seems to be held almost universally by Indians."
This means no more than Christianity is the more intelligible to Hindoos & the less repulsive as it departs from its lofty principles, & seems frankly to have domesticated itself on the normal levels of human use & wont! What can they know of the causes of the War? They follow the usual course of pagans in bringing their religion into the service of their own side.