The Henson Journals

[100]

Tuesday, July 10th, 1917.

1072nd day

Before getting up I read aloud to Ella for an hour the learned book on Reservation, published by a Mirfield Father, Freestone, who was killed in Mesopotamia before his book had issued from the press. It is very interesting as an excursus on religious antiquarianism, but the writer evidently feels that it is something incomparably more important. The book is being widely read by the clergy. The bishops appeal to it in their futile attempts to sanction Reservation for the sick (who don't want it), and to prohibit Reservation for the devotions of the faithful (who are longing for it)! It is surely a circumstance of grave suggestiveness that in the 20th century, & in the course of the cruellest War of all history, the clergy of England should direct their studies to, & excite their passions over, the superstitious vagaries of semi–pagans. In point of fact there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Anglican clergymen whose principal interest in the War arises from the opportunity it has brought to them of bringing back the long–discarded & half–forgotten devotions of the later Middle Ages.

The day slipped away very quietly. I wrote a few letters, & then walked to call on Mrs Skeffington–Craig, who lives hard by. Two of her grand–children, Blanch & Sydney, whose Father Colonel Laurie was killed in the war, pleased me greatly by their vivacity & friendliness. After lunch we drove for an hour. From a rising ground on the way to Ossington (where the family of the former Speaker, Denison, reside) we gained a distant view of Lincoln Cathedral. Then, after tea, we walked again, & so got through until dinner–time. Besides our hostess there was nobody at dinner besides ourselves, & the French–Swiss governess, an intelligent lady who had travelled far and wide after the manner of her people, and said much that was interesting & possibly true about Russia. She spoke with much abhorrence of the Dowager–Empress, to whom far more than the Czarina she attributed the foolish obstinacy of the Tsar, and the Revolution which it finally compelled.

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