The Henson Journals

[136]

Saturday, October 15th, 1927.

What a man can attain through self confidence and courage, through passion & imagination, through industry and will, he attained. Today, in the age of revolutions which once again are opening every path to the man of supreme ability, the ardent youth of Europe can find as an example and a warning no greater man than the one who, of all men of the West, made and suffered the most violent commotions.

v. Emil Ludwig 'Napoleon' p.681.

These are the concluding words of Ludwig's 'Napoleon' which I finished in bed this morning. Lenin and Mussolini inevitable suggest themselves as our nearest modern parallels to the mighty Corsican; but Lenin was an ideologue, and Mussolini is not a soldier. Perhaps the conditions under which the world now moves on its way prohibit the supreme influence of soldiers which was possible in Napoleon's time. A world conqueror is hardly conceivable now, for the world is now too vast, and the cost of conquest too great.

[137]

I received from the Home office "a copy of the warrant of appointment" as member of the Committee 'to consider the law and practice relating to solicitation ec.' It is almost certain that I shall not be able to attend the meetings.

In the afternoon, Lionel & I motored to West Hartlepool, where I dedicated the new Sunday School in S. James's Parish, and afterwards made a speech, which was grotesquely out of place in a company of the most squalidest folk imaginable!! There was a procession through the streets from the Church to the Sunday School, but it was not impressive, 7 evoked nothing more satisfactory than the excited query of a small bo– Are they goin' to feed the elephants? I wonder whether we gain, or lose, by these fatuous parades, which lose by their frequency whatever significance they may conceivably possess.

I found on returning to my study 3 volumes sent by their publisher (Ernest Benn). Miss Maud Royden, Father Ronald Knox, and Prof. Julian Huxley "give a reasoned, simple, and candid statement of the nature of their beliefs & the reason for which they hold them". The discussions about Prayer Book Revision have rather a petty aspect beside such questions as these writers discuss. There can be no doubt about the fact, or its gravity. Christianity has lost hold, & civilized mankind is seeking for a substitute. The peculiar burden of a bishop's life is the necessity of being immersed in the tiniest practical affairs, & of assuming at every turn the truth of assertions which we know to be questioned, & suspect are questionable.