The Henson Journals

[89]

Friday, December 21st, 1917.

1236th day

I attended Mattins in Hereford Cathedral, and said goodbye to Archdeacon Lilley & Canon Bannister in the vestry afterwards. The Dean gave me a little booklet on the Cathedral when we parted.

We travelled back to Durham by way of Manchester, and arrived about 11.30 p.m. Beyond a wait of nearly two hours at Manchester, & half an hour at York, it would be affectation to say that our journey was excessively uncomfortable. A considerable pile of letters was awaiting my return.

Save for one anonymous letter, these were all expressed in the kindest manner. The Bishops of Ripon and Newcastle, the last especially, emphasize their pleasure at my coming on to the Bench. It may be that the time will come when the writers of this kind of letter will desire to forget that they ever wrote to me thus. For it is sufficiently evident that the E.C.U. is putting forward its whole strength, and that it will be greatly assisted by two circumstances. On the one hand, the deep & general unpopularity of Bishop Percival's regime in Hereford predisposes the people there to tolerate & even welcome an interference from outside which they might otherwise have resented. On the other hand, the recent agitation for "Life and Liberty" has alienated from my side most of the younger men who would have been my natural supporters. Add the extraordinary feebleness of the Hereford Chapter, & (for the purpose of this "election") its unwieldy size.

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