The Henson Journals

[36]

Friday, May 24th, 1918.

1390th day

I was much pleased at receiving a letter from Mr Holt speaking in very high terms of George. My confidence in the boy seems to have been thoroughly justified. Fawkes writes to me about the petition to Convocation, & both the Archdeacon and Moore spoke to me on the subject. The precious document seems to have been sent to all the incumbents. It will be interesting to see how many of them will yield to the temptation. I went to the Palace, and spent the morning in the study trying to write a sermon for the Abbey. In the afternoon Lilley came to see about some business in his archdeaconry. It bored me horribly. Then I laboured at the tiresome business of arranging my books.

The papers are again full of German abominations. A great British Hospital in France has been attacked by German airmen, & that in a manner so persistent & systematic as to prove deliberate purpose. It is vain to speak of peace when war is waged in a manner so atrocious. Lord Denbigh has a long letter in the "Times" clamouring for a more systematic effort to bring home to our people the heinousness of the Germans. He refers with much indignation to a speech of the Archbishop of York in America, when his Grace referred to the Germans as the victims of their abominable Government. In the present temper of the people it is evidently quite useless to endeavour to restrain their resentment, which indeed has but too strong excuses. Christianity floats on the tides of natural passion as powerless to affect them as a cork on an Atlantic billow to arrest its movement!

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