The Henson Journals

[111]

2nd Sunday after Christmas, January 3rd, 1915.

153rd day

A clam dark morning, not notably cold. I celebrated at 8 a.m. There were 3 canons & 3 minor canons present, & but a scanty company besides. There was a good muster of troops at 10 a.m. Lillingston preached in the approved 'mission' style amid a tempest of coughs. The congregation at Mattins was but modest in point of numbers. I preached for 35 minutes from the words of the Lord's Prayer: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, as in heaven, so on earth". The attention was good throughout. After Evensong, instead of the sermon, we had the service of intercession issued by the two Archbishops, & composed (if the general belief be well grounded) by Armitage Robinson. I read the address from the pulpit, &, remaining there, called the general subjects of the intercession. Hughes intoned the suffrages. There was a considerable congregation, which considering the presence of the Mayor & Corporation, would have been small, only the very wet weather made all church–going difficult. Mead–Falconer came in to tea, & took away my portions of Hartlepool shells in order to examine them. He says that there are as many as 140,000 men in and about Newcastle. After dinner I read the first book of 'Paradise Lost' to the family circle: and this, while it raised the admiration of Linetta, also moved her national pride, & she must needs demonstrate that Italy could equal England in drawing the portrait of a colossal rebel. Accordingly we ended the day with my toiling along with a wholly unintelligible Dante before me, and listening to her expositions. Thus ends the first Sunday in the New Year. I wrote no letters, though a whole pile wait to be answered, & there are a crowd of friends who have a real claim to remembrance at this time. But a paralysis is upon my mind, & upon my fingers, & I can bring myself to write nothing to anybody.

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Issues and controversies: female suffrage