The Henson Journals

[69]

3rd Sunday in Advent, December 14th, 1919.

I communicated in the Palace Chapel at 8 a.m. This is a suitable & devotionally successful building. It made me more than ever discontented with the squalid room at Hereford. At 11 a.m. I attended Mattins at St Alban's, and preached to a great congregation. This is a very fine new church, & appears to be well–worked. The Vicar, Vining, was formerly in Sunderland, where I remember preaching for him. In the evening I preached in the cathedral to a considerable assembly. The service is an unconventional arrangement. There is no choir, and everything, except the lesson, is taken from the pulpit. After service we had supper in the Deanery. Mr George Wills, the Dean's father–in–law, who is a tobacco–millionaire, & Mr Peel, a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, were also there. There is no doubt about the intimacy of the alliance between the Church and 'Capitalism' in the City of Bristol. The Bishop evidently commends himself with great success to the commercial magnates of the City, and they are contributing to the diocesan funds with considerable liberality. But a suspicion grows on my mind that there must be a quid pro quo for this lucrative patronage, & that it may be something which a Christian Church ought not to be willing to yield.

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