The Henson Journals

[49]

Monday, October 20th, 1924.

There could be no greater disaster than to identify Christianity, as some would do, with a political theory which happens to attract us for the time, and finally go the way of every other.

v Ernest F. Scott The Ethical Teaching of Jesus p 82

R. H. Hutton's "Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought" 1899 has some useful observations on the problems of prayer. Especially c. xxxi Prayers for the Dead: & c. xxxii 'Canon Kingsley on Reasonable Prayer', & c. xxxiii 'Canon Liddon on Prayer & Miracle'.

The Papist 'Reply' arrived. It is well–written, and, from its own point of view, not ineffective; but it evades the true issues.

After lunch Walter Smith and I walked in the Park. We fell in with a party of five young miners, all out of work, and had some conversation with them. They seemed both intelligent & well mannered. How long will they remain so?

It is 22 years since Ella and I were married in the Abbey. We grow older, and are visibly expressing the fact. She grows deaf & I grow cynical. Neither deafness nor cynicism makes for happiness. And the course of the world adds nothing to correct the inevitable sadness of waxing years. Time is carrying away our friends, and we move forward in a strange land in an increasing loneliness. Old age will be a rather terrible experience.

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