The Henson Journals

[225]

Monday, October 20th, 1919.

My wife and I complete today 17 years of married life. We are still on terms of affection, and disposed to go forward in company, and that is much: but we have had great disappointments, and the outlook today is far greyer & more uncertain than when we joined hands before the High Altar of Westminster. Indeed it is difficult to overstate, because it is quite impossible fully to realize the magnitude and gravity of the disaster which has overtaken the world since 1902. And on no section of the community does that disaster bear more threateningly than on that to which we ourselves belong. It requires a stronger faith than I possess not to lose heart.

We came away from Canterbury after breakfast, and travelled to London comfortably enough save that the Fog held us up for half an hour as we approached the capital. We drove to Great College Street, & deposited our bags with the Caröes, who had kindly given us shelter: & then parted, Ella to attend a wedding at Ealing, and I to lunch in the Athenaeum, and talk to Bishops. The Fog hangs about the City rather threateningly.

[226] [symbol]

October 21st 1919.

My dear Bishop of Zanzibar,

I have to thank you for the gift of your book, "The Christ and His Critics", which I have read with careful attention and sustained interest.

I note with great regret that your health has suffered from those two formidable ills, tropical exhaustion and influenza. We shall meet at Lambeth, if God permit, next year when the Lambeth Conference holds its session, & I dare say we may have speech on the many subjects of mutual interest which that meeting raises.

Believe me, with sincere regards,

Yours sincerely,

H. H. Hereford

There is a specimen of "the soft answer", but I hardly think that the odium theologicum is the kind of "wrath" that can thereby be "turned away". It is reported that the Bishop of Zanzibar is so full of engagements that he can undertake no more. These include a visit to Durham, where the Dean has invited him to preach in the Cathedral. This can hardly be interpreted as a kindly or considerate action of my successor.

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