The Henson Journals

[76]

Wednesday, August 30th, 1922.

[^written in Greek, Matthew 26:25^]

The traitor could not help himself: there was that in Christ's tone, and look, which made His Words a direct challenge to himself. He "answered" involuntarily with the impudent question, "Is it I Rabbi". The Lord's answer is a direct affirmative, but it did not move the disciples to indignation & some effort to arrest the traitor's course. Perhaps the notion of such gross treason was too remote from their minds to be wholly realized: perhaps, they credited the disclaimer of Iscariot; perhaps, they supposed that the Master was speaking of some spiritual failure which in due course He would explain. Or was Judas really yielding to an impulse of good within himself? And when he went out into the night had he some intention of withdrawing from his treason? Judas is the most fascinating because the most representative figure in the picture gallery of the Gospel. Because he is the most representative, he is also the most enigmatic, for he embodies & illustrates supremely the insoluble problem of morals. "Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor". He had not been an apostle if he had not perceived, and loved the Best: he had not been a Traitor, if he had not strangely chosen & pursued the Worst. And our own experience is ever presenting the same Paradox, which in him is interpreted.

[77]

The morning was brilliant, and we left Belhary in high spirits. We motored through Perth to Stirling; the road lay through a fair country, pleasing rather than romantick. A mile or so before reaching Dumblane, we lunched by the road–side, bestowing the surplus of our sandwiches on two lean & hungry men, who received them with eagerness. They had an aspect superior to that of the tramps, who haunt the roads at this season of the year, & may have been ex–service men, unable to find employment. Their appearance cast a shadow on my mind, & oppressed my conscience with the vision of a grossly offensive paradox – Christ's declared Representative at his ease in a Wolsely Car, making holiday, confronted by Christ's true successors, the outcast poor, sitting homeless & hungry by the roadside, "fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table". The paradox is equally intolerable and irremovable. It can spoil one's earthly happiness: it cannot suggest any way of escape. South of Stirling the road lay through mines and industries which spoiled the roads, disfigured the scenery, & stamped the people with the sullenness & squalour distinctive of industrialism. We visited Dumblane Cathedral, which is a fine church & well restored. In the chancel lie buried three sisters, of whom one is said to have been James IVths wife. They were poisoned in order that the King might marry Margaret Tudor. We reached Garvald Dolphinton about 5 p.m. after travelling about 110 miles.

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