The Henson Journals

[102]

Thursday, January 6th, 1921.

"The state of human affairs does not even admit of an equivalent for the mischief of setting things afloat; & the danger of parting with those securities of liberty which arise from regulations of long prescription & ancient usage."

Bishop Butler.

I believe this is to be as true in 1921 as when it was spoken in 1741.

Revolutions are always costly blunders. The good they effect was always accessible at a less price than they involved. They hedge round progress with a dark envelop of disaster. Surely the evolution of political liberty & efficient government in France did not really require the nightmare of violence, crime, & folly which led in Napoleon's despotism. Nothing can be plainer than that the hideous orgy of tyranny and wretchedness in Russia has no necessary connexion with any ultimate political & social advance over the Tsarist règime which may finally be secured. Why must we go on repeating this costly absurdity of Revolution in order to improve our lot? I suppose that the answer to this question lies in the fact that in time of Revolution there is madness in the air. Sometimes "oppression has driven even the wise men mad": more often there is discontent & great mistrust & a suggestion of change which sweeps the ordinary mass off their feet, & in Butler's illuminating phrase "set things afloat".

[103] [symbol]

W. P. Ker sent me the following lines:–

Intellectus Possibilis

O Human Race! Condemn'd to creep.

From point to point, a nibbling sheep.

When will thy day of glory come

To lift thee from the mist and hum,

No more compell'd to muse & meddle

With page and paragraph and schedule,

But instantaneously to be a

Co–partner with the One Idea,

Synoptically thus to bring

Thy wits to bear on everything!

All day (save for the unavoidable letters) I have worked at the Westminster sermon. After lunch I walked in the Park for an hour. The Rev. F. C. Tymms, curate of Jarrow, came to see me. He was ordained in 1912, and has divided him ministry between St Cuthbert's, Hebburn, and his present parish.

I received from the Urban District Council of Houghton–le–Spring a letter urging me to appoint Mr Hodgson, the Vicar of Escombe to that Rectory. I instructed Maish to send a civil reply saying that that clergyman's name would be placed on the list of those whom I would consider when I had to make the appointment.

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