The Henson Journals

[211]

Saturday, April 6th, 1929.

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Avignon

A violent and biting wind did all that was possible to make our expedition to Nimes and the Pont du Gard as comfortless as possible. We shivered, and held our hats all the way. But, of course, nothing could destroy the interest of these incomparable spectacles. The arena at Nimes & the Pont du Gard are sufficient of themselves to establish the primacy of imperial Rome.

I noted with a kind of shame the notices set up outside the Arena announcing bull fights on Sundays. While I was reflecting pensively on the paradox thus protruded on my notice, a fine lad, perhaps 19 years old, went up to the notice, & read it with eager attention. I wondered whether a lad of like type & age, who 17 centuries ago, had read the announcement of the [212] [Avignon] gladiatorial combats & chariot races in the same place, would have been in any essential respect inferior. And if not, then what do we mean by progress? and why do we speak of Christendom?

And is this little all that was to do?

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Well is the thing we see Salvation?

The inadequacy of the practical effect of Christianity in view of the orthodox theory as to its origin and character has always seemed to me the most formidable difficulty in the way of discipleship. It could not have been so at first, for the Pauline Epistles are a demonstration of the extraordinary altitude, moral & spiritual, to which the first converts were raised by their new religion. The scandals of the Apostolick Churches, which the Epistles frankly disclose, only throw into greater prominence the normally high standard actually accepted.

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