The Henson Journals

[67]

2nd Sunday after Epiphany, January 15th, 1928.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 o'clock. We numbered 8 communicants including John.

After breakfast I wrote to the following:–

1. The Managing Editor of the Evening Standard.

2. Dr L.P. Jacks, Editor of the Hibbert Journal.

3. Mrs Davidson.

4. Archdeacon Bayne.

5. The Master of Trinity, Cambridge.

6. The President of Union College, Schnectady [sic], N.Y.

After lunch I walked round the Park in the rain, meditating on possible lines for the Cambridge sermon. The two title–pages – Holbein's to the Great Bible, and the composite figure to Hobbes's Leviathan – might be a picturesque introduction. The earlier expresses a theory based on Old Testament Nationalism: the latter, a theory based on secular political necessities. Both worked out in a despiritualised Erastianism.

I finished 'Pascal'. his attitude towards Religion is strangely similar to Butler's. Make the necessary allowance for 18th century Anglicanism in the one case and 17th century Romanism on the other, & the similarity is apparent & close. The Jansenism of the Frenchman is parallelled by the Puritan upbringing of the Englishman.