The Henson Journals

[159]

Friday, March 9th, 1923.

The great need of the coming age appears to be a faith than shall be at once deep, honest, morally helpful, not tremulous, and not foolish. Faith in an indisputable God must be detached from faith about disputable incidents. We must learn to distinguish between knowledge of material facts, & confidence in spiritual realities; and to combine resolute trust in Righteousness with a resolute distrust in all history (whether of things animate or inanimate) that is not commended to us by appropriate evidence.

Edwin A. Abbott. Preface to Philomythus

I wrote to Neville Talbot thanking him for his book, & making a few observations on it. Also I wrote to the lady, Miss Holt, who protested against abbreviating the Decalogue in the Liturgy, because such an abbreviation would encourage cruelty to animals! I made an extract of such part of my Presidential Address as referred to Prayer Book Revision, & sent it with my compliments to the Editor of the Times. After lunch I played bowls with William. I wrote to Knowlden offering him the honorary chaplaincy vacated by Gow's death. He is a good steady worker, of the old–fashioned but conscientious and law–abiding type of High Churchmen, now too rarely found in the parishes. He deserves something more considerable than a compliment.

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