The Henson Journals

[73]

Monday, June 11th, 1917.

1043rd day

As I was carrying the bags downstairs, I fell rather heavily, slipping on a treacherous mat, & bruised myself uncomfortably. However, we got away by the early train, & reached the Deanery before 11 a.m. Beyond writing a few letters I did little, movement being irksome to me. The afternoon post brought a letter from Cyril Still, in which he says that the military authorities continue to advise them not to abandon hope that Reggie has survived. It is now many months since he was reported "missing". The Australian boy–scout, Reggie Naughton, wrote to me enclosing a card of Ypres Cathedral as it was, and is. He is evidently on the front which has just been illumined by a great victory. A chaplain named Thomas Tiplady on his title–page sent me a volume of his own called "The Kitten in the Crater & other Fragments from the Front". It contains many interesting, and, if they can be trusted, important statements: but the "if" is serious. I infer that Mr T. T. is a Methodist, and he has an undoubted facility of expression. He writes for a public which he knows: and that public cares little for the truth. This is my doubt, & it destroys any pleasure which I might otherwise & naturally find in the narratives from the Front. At Hexham I read through a little book by Neville Talbot, which seemed to escape or attempt to escape, from the conventions of religious testimony. But it too failed to convince me. Talbot, like his illustrious father, is more candid in phrase than lucid in thought: & his ultimate service is always to the cause of Sacerdotalism. Meanwhile a volume ^of testimony,^ ever–waxing, attests the general failure of the Anglican chaplains, a failure relieved by the admirable conduct of individuals, & masked by the compliments which the military authorities pay to the work of the clergy, but insisted upon and indisputable. All agree that the Roman priests are at their best in active service at the front. I incline to think that Protestant ministers are more likely to be at their worst: for as men have often said, Romanism is the religion in which to die, and Protestantism that in which to live. The Anglican too often falls between two stools, posing as a "Catholic" to Protestants, & failing to be even intelligible.

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