The Henson Journals

[34]

Thursday, November 8th, 1917.

1193rd day

I went to S. Gregory's Chapel, & there received the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. Ella came also. Thus, then, in all Christian semblance, and, I think, intention my Birthday was begun. The passage which fell to be read in the Deanery Chapel at family prayer contained the striking passage, which I would like to be properly entitled to adopt as the formula of my own life: – "We are not of them that shrink back unto perdition: but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul". After 54 years of life, there can be no fresh discoveries of power in one's self, and few fresh opportunities for using such power as one possesses. The failures, and still more the faults, of the past weigh heavily on one's conscience, and go far to take all heart out of one's efforts. Still, it is something to realize that the inexorable alternative is "Backwards or Forwards", and to be steadily set on going forward. My letters were hardly exhilarating, & yet not without a certain suggestiveness:

1. A very affectionate letter from Linetta, full of distress about the Italian disaster. She says the traitorous troops are reported to be Florentines.

2. An affectionate letter from Angel, sending photographs of herself, & of her husband, Captain Francis Thelwall M.C.

3. A letter from the Prolocutor accepting my notice of motion for Convocation.

4. A letter from the Rev. Sidney M. Berry, the Minister of Carrs Lane Church, inviting me to preach there early in the next year.

5. A letter from Tommie Hall, sending me Birthday wishes from himself and my god–daughter, Audrie.

[35]

6. A letter from my Godson, Alfred Spelling, who still waits for a commission.

7. A message of good wishes "from one of your old S. Margaret's congregation".

I began the sermon for Mayor's Sunday, & wrote to Ernest. Then we lunched with the Bishop of Jarrow, & found there the Bishop of Durham & Archdeacon Derry. I asked the Bishop to be the Preacher on January 6th, which is appointed to be observed as a Day of Prayer & Thanksgiving.

I presided at a meeting of the Library Committee, where we had but little business. Then I attended Evensong, after which, since it was raining, I walked with Cruickshank for an hour in the Cloisters. Then I wrote letters to Linetta, Elizabeth, Olive, Norman Henderson, & Harry Dibben. Also to Lord Portsmouth. Hughes, having reported that two of his children were down with measles, & that the doctor considered it unsafe for him to continue living in the house, I caused him to take up his abode in the Deanery.

The evening paper reports another coup d'état in Petrograd. The Soviet appears to have thrown Kerensky overboard, & announces a programme, of which the first article is a "democratic peace". The Germans claim to be still pressing the Italians, & now reckon their captures to exceed 250,000 men & 2300 guns. Besides such gigantic operations our little advance in Flanders has a petty appearance. There is so far no mention of the arrival of British & French reinforcements at the Italian Front: but there are confident statements that very considerable numbers have already reached Italy. On the whole, however, the dimensions of the disaster which has befallen the Italians tend to grow greater as information trickles in, & its possibilities are reflected upon.

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