The Henson Journals

[277]

2nd Sunday after Epiphany, January 19th, 1908.

A cold fog came down upon us as the hour for Church service drew on, and, taking the local defilements in its descent, had grown into a dark & smoky mantle of vapour by the time the service had started. Accordingly there was but a scanty congregation in the Abbey, with an unusual amount of coughing. I preached on Isaiah LV. 4, 8, making my text a peg to hang some observations on Foreign Missions upon. This Sunday had been set apart for sermons throughout the Rural Deanery of Westminster on that subject, to pave the way for the Pan–Anglican Congress.

Gamble preached in the Abbey at 3 p.m. As we were going in to the service we encountered Asquith & Miss Tennant. He told me that the Attorney General, whose death was announced yesterday, was only ill 36 hours. Gamble is a good preacher, but more 'popular' than I had supposed.

There was a fair congregation in S. Margaret's at Evensong, when I preached again in the Missionary Congress.

Signorina & Gilbert came in to supper.

[278]

On S. Paul's Day Ridgeway was consecrated in the Abbey as Bishop of Chichester. I attended the service, and made a point of shaking hands with him, & wishing him well. Beeching preached a sermon marked by great plainness of speech. He swept away with proper decision the apostolic succession fiction: & spoke wholesome words as to the impropriety of the prattling habit of our present bishops, & the duty of episcopal silence.

In the afternoon I taught Miss Dorothy May for an hour with a view to her Confirmation: & later I went in to Gow to inquire as to Cuthbert's breaking his leg at football.

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