The Henson Journals

[15]

Thursday, December 10th, 1925.

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Butler is omnipotent in silencing. The throws the Deist on the horns of a dilemma: thus if you reject the Bible, you ought to reject Nature; or accept Nature, & you ought to accept of the Biblical Revelation. A dilemma silences: it never convinces, yet it wakens attention, in a fair mind, to cause it to reconsider its opinions and detect fissures in their structure.

v. Sermon on Bishop Butler by Canon A. S. Farrar. preached in Durham Cathedral. Feb. 28th 1899. Published in Durham University Journal, Dec.

1925.

Old Canon Farrar's sermon on Butler, whom he calls "the most distinguished occupant" of the see of Durham, was certainly well worth printing. It is full of good things, & had evidently been prepared very carefully. He mentions, in order to illustrate the great influence of the Deist literature, that "when London had not one fifth of its present population, the sale of one Deist Book on miracles was in one year (1728) 30,000 copies." The population of London was then about 750,000; it is now ten times as great. It is quite unthinkable that any book on any subject should have a sale of 300,000 copies in one year.

[16]

The whole morning was wasted in writing letters &c. After an early lunch, Ella and I left the Castle at 1.30 p.m. and motored to Blyth, a small town on the Northumbrian Coast, some 13 miles to the North of Newcastle. We missed our road, and arrived at the secondary school about 20 minutes late. Ella distributed the prizes, and I made a speech. The Mayor of Blyth in his robes adorned the platform. He was a stout, good–hearted, vulgar Presbyterian, whose concentration was marked by sense & intelligence. After tea, we returned to Auckland, arriving about 7.30 p.m.

I found awaiting me a letter from a Russian law student – Alexander B. Pokrovsky – begging for assistance "to help me to finish my education in one of the universities." He says that he is 26 years old, and has fought under Denikin & Wrangel. He is probably a disreputable creature, made such by the woeful conditions of his life during the last few years. But how hateful is always to refuse help to the needy! What ought a true Christian to do with these appeals? Seriously to examine them would absorb one's whole time, and adequately to satisfy them would more than absorb one's whole income.

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