The Henson Journals

[232]

Thursday, August 4th, 1927.

I received a letter from William. It is now three years since he left my service in order to seek his fortune in South Africa. That he should be employed, & in regular correspondence with me are proofs that he has not wholly failed.

We went into Belfast, and lunched with the Bishop of Down (Dr Grierson) and his daughter. I was agreeably surprised to hear that he was in favour of the passing of the Revised Prayer Book. He defended the Orange Lodges, but in this he contradicted flatly my noble host, whose verdict on them was equally decisive and severe. We stopped on our return journey to look at the newly completed west front of the Protestant Cathedral.

I had a long and intimate talk with Lady Maureen Stanley. She is a typical product of her own generation, & expresses its audacities with intelligence & vigour. It is a generation which has lost hold of the traditional morality, and is floundering about for a substitute.

[233]

"Willingly optimistic, wealthy and satisfied, America is pleased to declare that service rendered is today the very condition of profit (benefice), that in consequence the great producer & the great man of business are bent not only on making fortunes but on serving the community. These in turn affirm to admiration that such indeed is their primary purpose. When we hear men of cool business assert at the very moment when they issue superb balance–sheets that the service of society is their great passion, we are tempted to smile. Perhaps they believe it, for the American deceives himself easily: besides, it is always pleasant to say: standardised literature which works for the glory of American production is filled ad nauseam with such professions of faith: the eloquence of the chambers of commerce, those modern temples of economic progress, are starred with them."

André Siègrfried l.c. p.175.

[234]

Lord L. told me that, at the present rate of production, there was coal enough in the Dawdon pit to last for 150 years, and in the new Seaham pit to last for 70 years. After dinner we strolled in the grounds. Lady L. and I walked to the Lough front, and had much conversation. It is a queer picture of society which she unfolded, and leaves on one's mind an impression of utter helplessness. Christianity is not so much denied or criticised, as just ignored. It lies wholly outside the prevailing convention. Life is set round with enjoyments, organized for pleasure, and yet minds are vacant and hearts hungry. In this ego–centric existence, from which both the fear of God and concern for man have been shut out, sex takes a position of central & dominating importance, and marriage shrivels quickly into a tiresome & irrational convention, from which self–emancipation is an evident necessity. The impracticable hours are filled with gossip, flirtation, excitement, and self–indulgence, which blunts the intellectual qualities, atrophies the generous faculties of the spirit, & petrifies the character. What a life for an immortal and rational creature! The 'pagan suckled in a creed outworn' towers above it in the freedom of his soul, & the unspoiled joy of his perceptions. Our modern world is committing suicide.

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