We, no doubt, have the knowledge, but perhaps they had the wisdom.
I think, Antony, that in the history of England we shall have difficulty in finding any of our greatest men whose hearts and minds were not filled with a reverence for God and a faith in something beyond the blind forces which are all that Science has to offer mankind as a guide of life.
All who have acted most nobly from the days of Ralegh and Sir Thomas More, down to the days of Gordon of Khartoum, and down again to our own days when the youth of England upheld the invincible valour, self-sacrifice, and glory of their race in the greatest of all wars,—all have been filled with the love of God and have found therein a perfect serenity in the face of death, and that peace which passeth all understanding.
The character of our race rests indubitably upon that faith, and he who lifts his voice, or directs his pen, to tear it down, had better never have been born.
Your loving old
G.P.
Another diary that you should read by and by is that of Henry Grabb Robinson.