The Henson Journals

[405]

Passion Sunday, March 24th, 1912.

'The pulpit is the hypocritical minister's stage. There, & in the press, & in public acts, where there is room for ostentation, you are sure to have his best, & almost all.'

Baxter. 'Reformed Pastor' c.7.

Baxter was himself the most prominent & indefatigable of the preachers & writers of the day. It is evident that he felt himself the temptation to hypocrisy which both preaching & writing involve: & his own experience enabled him to divine the nature of the reigning humbug of that age of preachers & writers.

I celebrated alone at 8 a.m. & sadly, thinking of Ward & my own personal failure. There were 21 cts.

At Mattins the congregation was smaller than usual: possibly the reduction of travelling facilities may have contributed to this result. The Speaker, Lord St Aldwyn, Sir R. Finlay, Sir H. Verney, Sir John Barran, Dicey, Pember, & Lord Camper–down were present. I preached a 'political' sermon from Jeremiah vi.13,14 dwelling on the many signs of a definitely anti–Christian tendency which our society now presents, & taking up my parable against Materialism as expressed in popular politics & religion.

[406]

I attended service in the Abbey at 3 p.m. The Bishop ( Boyd Carpenter) preached. His eloquence was of course astonishing, the flow of well–chosen & well–arranged words being abundant & facile: but there was little beside the words. It is an obsolete style of preaching – obsolete, I mean, among men of education, but it still prevails in the Dissenting pulpit, & continues to be very popular. The preacher takes the Bible at face value, & moralizes at pleasure.

At Evensong I preached to a crowded church. S. Margaret's was quite full.

George Mackarness came in to supper.

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