The Henson Journals

[136]

Tuesday, October 23rd, 1928.

I spent the morning in putting together some notes for the address on Religion which I had undertaken to deliver to the Armstrong students and which must be delivered tonight. I shall lead up to the conclusion that whether Religion to be true or false, it has played so great a role in the drama of Humanity & is so patent an influence on human affairs & in the shaping of individual conduct that it cannot be reasonable to ignore or to deride it. I can understand, and in certain moods sympathize with Voltaire's attitude, Ėcrasez l'Infame, : I can understand, & in certain moods adopt Bishop Butler's on Pascal's attitude of awful deference: but I cannot understand the attitude either of mere indifference or of contempt. My personal conviction is that Religion carries the fate of civilization. I may end with Lord Bryce's words in the final chapter of "Modern Democracies".

"The question of the permanence of democracy resolves itself into the question of whether mankind is growing in wisdom & virtue, & with that comes the question of what Religion will be in the future, since it has been for the finer & more sensitive spirits the motive power behind Morality".

[137]

I walked round the Park by myself. The tempests of the week–end have brought down the leaves so freely, that the glory of the autumnal colouring is transferred from the trees to the turf. Olive Pollok–Morris arrived at tea–time. At 6 p.m. I left the Castle, & motored to Newcastle, where I addressed in Armstrong College an audience of about 900 students gathered by the Student Christians. Sir Theodore Monson presided, & I spoke for about 45 minutes. The students, who were about equally divided between the sexes, listened with attention, & applauded at the end. A girl–student briefly thanked me: & then we broke up. I retired forthwith to Auckland.

I received an interesting letter from William dated from Bulawayo on October 1st. He had visited the famous Zimbabwe Ruins, & sends quite a vigorous description of them. "I sometimes get depressed, progress seems so slow at times, & it worries me". Those long journeys over the veldt when "it often happens that one goes a hundred miles without seeing any signs of habitation, &, perhaps, only a few Kaffir huts dotted about on the veldt" must be equally fatiguing & depressing to a town–bred man.

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