The Henson Journals

[405]

3rd Sunday in Advent, December 13th, 1908.

I celebrated in S. Margaret's at 8 a.m.: there were but 18 comts . Hutton arrived in good time for the Abbey service. I took him into the church, & left him in the hands of the Sub–Dean. Then I returned to my room & laboured at my sermon, which I delivered to an unusually small congregation in the Abbey at 3 p.m. Raleigh, Waterfield, & Alan Henderson came to tea after service.

I attended evensong in S. Margaret's, & listened to an excellent sermon by Hine Haycock on the Bible. Anthony Browne, Gilbert, Bob, Geordie, Linetta, & Mary came to supper. George Dennistoun, Harold, & I were here.

[406]

On Tuesday, the 15th Dec: I took Mary Scott to see the presentation on the stage of 'Samson Agonistes' in the Theatre, Burlington Gardens. There was a great assembly of academic & literary magnates, including many ecclesiastics. The play itself does not act well; and it was not perhaps as well acted as it might have been. The chorus of ill–dressed young women who did duty as Davites was simply ludicrous. Samson himself & Manoah were fairly well acted, but on the whole result, I was disappointed.

On Wednesday, the 16th Dec. I went out of residence. In the evening there was a meeting of the S. Margaret's Guild. I addressed them on the subject of 'Confirmation', and answered a question, which had been sent in by one of the members, as to the interpretation of our Lord's words about the power of faith, spoken in connection with the episode of Cursing the Barren Figtree.

After the service, Mary introduced me to her friend, a daughter of Darwin Burton, the Diocesan Missioner of S. Albans. This young lady either has, or thinks she has lost all faith in Christianity.

[407] [symbol]

On Thursday I assisted the Dean of Durham in celebrating Miss Foster's wedding. Asquith signed the register. He said to me in the Vestry that he wished to consult me about a private matter, & would write to me. I replied that I was at all times willingly at his service. After the service I walked down the Embankment & fell in with Lang, with whom I turned back, and walked the length of the Embankment arms linked. I told him that on personal grounds I could grudge him nothing, but that on public grounds his promotion to York was a great disaster to my cause. He seemed very eager to persuade me that he was far more in harmony with me than I supposed, but I could not be persuaded; & spoke much to him of the difficulty implicit in his episcopalian position. He gave me the impression of being somewhat alarmed at the task before him, which indeed might well be the case. I was nastier than my feelings justified because the incongruity of our familiarity & my real sentiments tortured me. But how miserable are these jars, which make hypocrites of us all.

My wife & I attended the meeting of the Guild in the Mission room, where an entertainment was successfully engineered by the Secretaries & their friends.

[408]

On Friday morning came a confidential note from the P.M. asking me to give an opinion on five names, which he was considering for the vacant canonry of S. Paul's. He says that he wants to change the ecclesiastical colour of that chapter (or words to that effect), but the sentiment comes oddly from one who has but just exalted the most popular exponent of all that Chapter stands for to the northern Primacy. However I sate down forthwith, and wrote a careful statement of my opinions, & sent it forthwith to Downing Street. Thus my Yale lectures, on which I had at last made a modest beginning were again thrust aside.

On Saturday my wife & I attended the meeting in the Mansion House in aid of the Cathedral in Khartoum. The short letter headed '' 'Order' or 'Office' '', which I wrote last Monday in comment on Lang's statement to the 'Readers' that they were admitted to an office, not to an order, appeared in the 'Times' this morning.

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