The Henson Journals
Sun 3 April 1921
Volume 29, Pages 252 to 255
[252]
Low Sunday, April 3rd, 1921.
On May 29th 1670 South preached a sermon in Westminster Abbey from the words "But I say unto you, Love your enemies". He is careful to show that "love" means more than 'a fair deportment & amicable language', or than "fair promises', or than 'doing one or two kind offices to an enemy': but that it implies 1) "discharging the mind of all rancour & virulence towards an adversary". 2) 'doing him all the real offices of kindness that opportunity shall lay in our way'. 3) 'praying for our enemies. He takes occasion to gird at the puritans' prayers, & to point out that loving our enemies is consistent with "defending & securing ourselves against them". "We may, with a very fair comportment with this precept, love our enemies' persons, while we hate their principles, & counter–plot their designs." He then goes on to enforce the precept by 'the condition of our enemy's person', 'the excellency of the duty', and 'the great examples that recommend it'. Among the last he mentions our Saviour's and the King's. In a purple passage he presents Charles II as the greatest example, next to Christ, of forgiveness of enemies. "So that, in a word, as our Saviour has made love to our enemies one of the chiefest badges of our religion, so our king has almost made it the very mark of our allegiance." What benefit could such preaching have been to the Cavaliers who heard it? What impression could it have made on the ejected Nonconformists who heard of it?
[253] [symbol]
"Summer time" began this morning: Clocks & watches were adjusted to it overnight. A clear sky and brilliant sun were accompanied by a white frost, making the world wondrously good to look upon. It is a woeful reflection that the main thought in the minds of the people on this fair morning is a thought of anger, of apprehension, even of malice. And where is there left any exorcising virtue? We are in the grip of a malignant fate, and as prisoners held fast to a tread mill: perforce we must go forward though we disapprove the direction, and detest the effort. And there is no confidence, or possibility of confidence left to us. Even in this strike, which seems so insensate & sinister, can I purge my mind of a double suspicion ̶ that the coal–owners want to utilize the crisis to "break Labour", and that the Government want to justify the Prime Minister's language about the imminent risk of Revolution? And this suspicion holds me back from taking any action. Yesterday I began writing an appeal to the miners, and wrote two sheets, but then I reflected on the inadequacy of my knowledge of the relevant facts, & abandoned the attempt. It is not irresolution or infirmity of purpose (though these are not always absent) that paralyzes my action at every economic conflict, but this disconcerting sense of inadequate information. And mainly the course of events appears to confirm the suggestions of my own mind; for almost always what was said to be impossible is ultimately conceded, and the Revolution which was said to be an unavoidable consequence of the concession does not come. Conscientiousness and scepticism reduce me to a contemptible inactivity.
[254] [symbol]
Cyrus demanding of his captive Croesus, what man had persuaded him to embark on an unprovoked aggressive war, received this answer: "O King, it was I who did it, & brought thereby good fortune to you and ill to myself: but the cause of all was the god of the Greeks, in that he encouraged me to send my army. No man is so foolish as to desire war more than peace: for in peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons. But I must believe that heaven willed all this so to be" [^Additional sentence written in Greek^]. Thus we throw off from ourselves responsibility for our own follies, or is it that, in the disillusionment of extreme ill–fortune, we do get view of an underlying, ever–active Factor in human affairs which does, & alone can, explain the madness of men? "There is a tide in the affairs of men", and the ebb and flow of that tide is not determined by those whose fortunes it determines. Bishop Butler's question, 'May not whole communities & public bodies be seized with fits of insanity as well as individuals? and his melancholy comment, 'Nothing but this principle can account for the major part of those transactions of which we read in history", point in the same direction. There is in human affairs an enigmatic force which emerges at intervals, and governs their course. How shall we conceive of that force which deranges the judgement of individuals, & makes nations, churches, & classes, suddenly mad? Can I resist the suspicion that precisely the action of this enigmatic Force is the true & only sufficient explanation of the course of affairs, economic & political, in England and Ireland today?
[255] [symbol]
Manning described Great Britain as "the most anti–Christian power of the nominally Christian world, and the head of its anti–Christian spirit" (v. Leslie's 'Life' p.167. quoted by A. B. in the "Nation" April 2nd 1921). That view is probably held by most Roman ecclesiastics, & it explains much. I wrote to Fawkes and Linetta. The rest of the day ̶ save for the services in the chapel ̶ was spent in my study, where I indulged myself in my 'besetting sin' of 'browzing' among my books. It is a vicious but very pleasant method of "killing time". Wilson sent me a newspaper cutting which gave account of some observations on a cuckoo, which states that "the single cuckoo studied by Mr Chance laid no less than 21 eggs in a single season'. I had no notion that the cuckoo was so fertile a bird.
A notice from the Clerk of Parliaments informs me that the House of Lords meets tomorrow "in pursuance of His Majesty's Proclamation". I wonder whether this will cause any change in the arrangements for business which have been already arranged. The "Observer" announces that volunteers are being called for in order to preserve the pits from destruction by 'flooding', and that the Government will protect them from the strikers. If the "Triple Alliance" declines to join in the Strike, the time cannot be distant when the men will have to return to work, but if wilder counsels prevail, & the other Unions come out, the situation will be extremely grave.