The Henson Journals
Sun 31 January 1926
Volume 40, Pages 100 to 101
[100]
Septuagesima, 4th Sunday after Epiphany, January 31st, 1926.
Many have said and possible true, wilfulness hath chiefly occasioned what has befallen.
John Dillingham on Charles I's Execution.
This is the final sentence of the contemporary account of the black crime perpetrated in Whitehall on January 29th 1649, which appeared in the Times yesterday. The writer is cunningly ambiguous as to whose "wilfulness" he had in his mind. Assuredly there had been so much impracticable "wilfulness" on the part of the unfortunate monarch that even moderate judges agree that he had made himself "impossible" But had there not been an even guiltier "wilfulness" in his principal fore? Was Oliver Cromwell innocent here? Were any of the leading soldiers, who had been "thrown up" by the Civil War, and who found themselves within the reach of secular triumphs, which before the War, they could never have contemplated? The essence of "wilfulness" is the isolation of one's own interest and preference from the general Cause, under cover of which one speaks and acts. And it carries the pledge of failure. Only "he that doeth the Will of God" wins through, and "abides for ever."
[101]
I celebrated the Holy Communion in the chapel at 8 a.m. After breakfast I worked at the sermon for the evening. I wrote to Ferens saying that I would assent to the Guardians' nomination of a Sectary as chaplain to the Workhouse as I had considerable sympathy with their implied view that the Sectaries also are "established"!
The "Observer" publishes a heated exchange of letters between Thomas, the Railway Men's Secretary, & Cook, the Secretary of the Miners' Federation. It is interesting to observe that the latter boasts of being "class–conscious". That is a most sinister symptom. Whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain that "class–consciousness" is not capable of being reconciled with citizenship, with neighbourliness, or with Christianity.
Instigante Diabolo I inserted a reference to the untoward incident in the diocese of S. Alban's (where a Conference on Faith & Order has been suddenly cancelled because the Bishop & Dr Charles Harris objected to a "common Communion"!) into my sermon, & then, accompanied by Lionel, I motored to Newcastle, & preached to a large congregation in the Cathedral. A reporter carried away the M.S. of my sermon, and I returned to Auckland.