The Henson Journals

[104]

9th Sunday after Trinity, July 28th, 1918.

1455th day

O God, Whose mercies are infinite, & Whose Care embraces all things, have mercy upon me, and make known to me Thy Will, adding to the knowledge also the desire to fulfil it, and the power, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

The collect for this Sunday is again one of the best, just precise enough for individual use, so general that a congregation can adopt it.

"Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think & do always such things as are rightful; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Contrast this prayer with the long & stilted improvisations to which one listens with almost physical anguish, on occasions when "our Nonconformist Brethren" join us in some public service. It is not conflicting dogmata which keeps us apart, but inbred divergences of religious taste & habit. The Nonconformist finds our monotone prayers little more than meaningless gabble: the Anglican finds their extemporaneous outpourings a well–nigh intolerable profanation. Apart, they can be wondrously fraternal: in actual contact they could assassinate one another! This complicates the problem of Reunion very considerably: for our venturous efforts to bring the two parties together are apt to have the untoward effect of increasing their mutual disgust! We are actually driven to cherish isolation as the mother of civility & all other harmonious tempers! What a Paradox!

[105]

Chance will not do the work. Chance sends the breeze;

But if the pilot slumber at the helm,

The very wind that wafts us towards the port

May dash us on the shelves. The steersman's part is vigilance,

Blow it or rough or smooth.

(Old Pray.)

I culled the foregoing from the heading of one of the chapters of "The Fortunes of Nigel". I wrote to Ralph congratulating him on having received the C.V.O. from the King.

Note: Both Andrew Fairservice and Richie Maniplies refuse to be dismissed by their respective masters, Francis Oslbaldistone and Lord Glenvarloch by the same plea that they know when they have a good master.

Mrs Burgess came to see me. She has been "canteening" in France with the American Army, of which she gives a laudatory account. Her admiration for the French is very ardently expressed. Bishop Brent's main object, she says, is to minimize the friction between the Americans & the British, & to establish a mutual understanding between them. At first relations were strained by the intolerable bumptiousness of the Transatlanticks, but matters had improved. There was much appearance of religion among the new troops, but whether it will survive, or vanish as in the case of our own men, remains to be seen. War is bad for religion, and the longer it continues, the worse religion fares.

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