The Henson Journals

[156]

Friday, August 24th, 1917.

1117th day

A wet night, and pouring rain in the morning. The prospect of the Harvest grows gloomier daily. And now the burning of Salonika has destroyed a great accumulation of food–stuffs: and embarrassed the Allies by the fresh problem of feeding & housing 100,000 Levantines. Meanwhile our vast military effort in Flanders is arrested by the untimely rain. The fanaticks of the Horton type are beginning to dwell darkly on the probable connexion between Sunday labour in the sowing and ruinous weather in the gathering of the crops! A parson who is described as "the Precentor of Chelmsford Cathedral" has been talking folly of the Sabbatarian sort, and been cudgelled by the Bishop of Birmingham in the "Times": but the prelate is as morally unimpressive as the precentor is intellectually contemptible! The broad effect on the public mind cannot be favourable to religion, or to the Church of England, or to the Clergy thereof. We seem a futile divided folk, silly where ^we^ are earnest, frivolous where we are sane!

[157]

I went to the Cathedral & received Holy Communion. There was a single lay communicant. After Mattins I walked into the city, changed a cheque, bought stamps, & called on Alderman Herring in order to ask him to remove his advertisement Board from the station approach. He was very obliging, and consented at once. Returning to the Deanery, a bright–faced boy touched his hat to me. Something in his face looked familiar, and I inquired his name. He was George's brother, and had heard from him this morning. He also would go to sea! I paid my Assurance premium (£225.18.9) a vast sum.

After Evensong I called on Mr Smith, the draper, and heard from him the result of his negotiations with the knaves who own the advertisement boards which I seek to remove. On the whole, it seems probable that I may succeed in taking over the ground for £20 annum, which is, perhaps, an amount worth expending in such a cause. Lady Craik arrived by the 4.29. train from London, and, as Ella had not yet returned from Newcastle, I entertained her at tea. The afternoon post bought me a sea–stained letter from Harold dated as long ago as May 20th. He enclosed the envelope of a letter of mine, much scored with directions, which had ultimately reached him though after long delay through defective addressing.

I see in the church papers that Lang is exerting himself to press forward the Archbishops' Committee's Report, and openly associates himself with the "Life & Liberty" movement. He is probable [probably] responsible for the complaisance of the elder Primate, who yields to the hustling pertinacity of his junior. It is an ill chance that both Archbishops are Scots, which not only binds them together in an unexpressed but most intimate covenant, but alienates them from all true understanding of the English mind. The Church of England is the most distinctively English of all the national institutions. Surely it is a regrettable circumstance that neither of the Archbishops is an Englishman, especially now when the revision of its system is being forced forward.

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