The Henson Journals
Wed 19 February 1913
Volume 18, Pages 286 to 287
[286]
Wednesday, February 19th, 1913. Bishopthorpe.
The Holy Communion is celebrated daily in the Palace Chapel at 8.15 a.m: & Mattins is said at 8. There follows short Household Prayers: & then – at 9 a.m. breakfast. This is a cheerful & conversational meal. Lang makes a dignified & kindly host. I could not but marvel at the strange fortune which has brought him and me into our present relative situations – he the Archbishop of York & I the Dean of Durham.
The Dean of Carlisle motored me into York, & I made my first appearance in Convocation. It is an odd little foolish assembly, & bored me inexpressibly. The President with the members of the Upper House attended, & opened proceedings with a speech. In this I was mentioned with some flatterous words: & an eulogy was pronounced on that boisterous fanatick, Gray of Helmsley, whose death is just announced. I lunched with the Bishop Suffragan of Sheffield, who is Canon of the Cathedral & now, as Residentiary, occupies the prebendal House. On returning to Bishopthorpe I went for a walk with the Lord Mayor of Liverpool who has just been appointed chancellor of that diocese.
[287]
The Lord Mayor is, he told me, 45 years old. He is greatly interested in religion, & himself friendly to 'liberal Anglicanism'. The Bishop of Liverpool, of whom he spoke in terms of the highest admiration & regard, is hostile: &, when he listened to Inge's sermon, looked the picture of misery. "That does for the last fragments of my belief" – was the observation of some layman to the good prelate, as he came away from the said discourse, & of course this prompt confirmation of his worst fears deepened the poor man's gloom.
At dinner I sate between the Bishops of Ripon (Drury) and Sodor & Man (Denton Thompson). With the first I had an interesting conversation on "Foundations". I asked him point–blank whether he wd refuse Ordination to a man holding the views expressed in Streeter's Essay. He said that he cd not bring himself to ordain a man who held that the Body of Jesus "saw corruption" in the grave. We talked at some length, & with much frankness. I promised to send him a copy of "The Creed in the Pulpit", and he to send me his criticisms on it.