The Henson Journals

[155]

Wednesday, August 22nd, 1917.

1115th day

A little after 1.30 a.m. Mrs Berry came to our bedroom door to tell us that the "first warning" of an air–raid had been received. We did not think it necessary to get up, but decided to "take it lying down"! I worked away very fruitlessly at the Memoir: the warm heavy atmosphere renders work extraordinarily difficult. After Evensong Ella and I walked languidly, &, when we came in, there were the two men from Spennymoor waiting for me. They wanted me to come out, and preach twice in the interest of their local Fund for sending relations to visit their wounded friends. These men – John Haile and Councillor Blenkin – were dissenters, the one a "Primitive", the other a Wesleyan, & they possessed the oleaginous fluency which makes Dissenters so trying, but they did not appear to me humbugs, &, certainly, they expressed very sound sentiments about Stockholm. I introduced them to Ella, who gave them tea: and I promised to reserve September 23rd for them.

The evening paper reports two air–raids, the one near Hull, the other in the Isle of Thanet. No appreciable injury was done in the first, but in the last some civilians were slain, & two of the enemy machines brought down. It is reported that our naval forces have destroyed a Zeppelin in the North Sea. On the whole the Hun did not prosper in the air last night.

I read with much interest Dr Ross's account of his nephew, a Scottish minister who joined the Army as a soldier & was killed in France. ("A Scottish Minister and Soldier, the Rev. Peter Ross Husband M.A. 2nd Lieut. Black Watch.") It adds confirmation to my belief that the clergy of military age ought to be in the ranks. Mr Husband was, perhaps, a unique instance of a man, physically & temperamentally ill–qualified for the military life, who yet felt so strongly the moral obligation of this War with Germany, and the intrinsic indecency of the Christian minister's exemption from the risks & hardships of campaigning, that he persistently forced himself on the authorities until he was accepted for military service, trained, & sent to the Front.

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