The Henson Journals

[709]

2nd Sunday in Lent, March 19th, 1916.

594th day

A heavy mist lay over the country when the morning broke. The temperature is high: & the birds sing as if indeed it was the spring at last. Ella and Ernest motored with me to Stockton, here I preached in Holy Trinity Church. There was a considerable congregation. The parson (Drury) had just asked me to preach about 'Kikuyu', and I did so taking as my text Acts X.46–48. The sermon was listened to with very close attention. We lunched in the Vicarage. Ernest made himself very affectionate to the little girl, a pretty child. We got back to Durham in good time for Evensong in the Cathedral at 3.30 p.m. I preached the 2nd Sermon of my course on "Christian Liberty". There was but a petty congregation, & this consisted mostly of students who will have vanished by next Sunday, as term ends tomorrow. Crawly, Lord Boyne's agent, came in to tea, & to dry himself as he had walked through the rain from Brancepeth. I wrote to Carissima, and talked with Ernest. We have become very closely attached to one another in the course of this fortnight. He has opened out his heart to me, & told me his history: and I find so much to love in the one, & to respect in the other, that his surface faults, which had mainly impressed me before, fell into the back–ground, and appeared to be relatively trivial. He has promised me to settle his mind on being ordained as soon as the War is over, if he comes safely through it, and, if not, he could not die more graciously than with his will set on that purpose. It is clear to me that his self–respect is bound up with his becoming a clergyman; but the conception of the ministry which his Canadian experiences have impressed on him is not a high one, and 'his foes are they of his own household'.

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Issues and controversies: Kikuyu