The Henson Journals

[203]

22nd Sunday after Trinity, October 27th, 1918.

1546th day

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Cathedral at 8 a.m. At 11 a.m. I preached in Tupsley Parish Church, a modern building with good acoustics & little architectural merit.

The Vicar, Ledger, seemed an intelligent man. He asked my ruling on the case of a woman, confirmed and communicant, who had discovered that she had never been baptised. I told him to ascertain the fact more carefully, & to baptize her privately. If there were any dubiety, the baptism was to be conditional. There was no need for her to be confirmed again.

I preached in the Cathedral at 6.30 p.m. from the words of David. "There is none like that = give it me". This served as a text for a sermon on the Bible.

I wrote letters to George who, to my regret & disappointment, expresses a disgust of maritime life, and a desire to abandon it : and to Ernest.

The morning's past had brought letters from both of them. Ernest writes on official Bulgarian note–paper, which he had "looted" during the recent advance. He is in good spirits, and evidently thinks the end of the war is near, which will release him (as he assumes) from hardships, and enable him to marry his Beloved. I cannot wholly share his hopes. It seems barely credible that the walls of "Militarism" can fall flat so promptly at the ram's horn blast from America. It may, of course, be the case that Germany is so exhausted as to be literally unable to continue the War, or too disaffected to be willing to do so. But I doubt both suppositions.

---