The Henson Journals

[116]

2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, January 18th, 1920.

The unseasonably warm weather continues, and is no doubt a merciful anodyne to a society which can either get no coal, or cannot afford to buy what is to be gotten. Horace Walpole, in the year of the London earthquake, noted that the weather in February was "unnaturally hot". He noticed also the wonderful sunsets which "Mr Chute's "Francesco" interpreted as a sign of an earthquake "within a week". The recent earthquake in Mexico is proof enough of seismic activity. With Bolshevism rampant we might be spared earthquakes.

I went to the cathedral at 8 a.m., & received the Holy Communion. Instead of going to Mattins, I wrote letters to Temple, Philip, Mrs Darwin, George, Marion, Herbert Nicholson.

In the afternoon I baptized William Arthur Badham in St Nicholas Church. Ella, his Mother, & Bateman were witnesses. I gave him a prayer–book as a memento of the occasion. He made his responses manfully.

I went to Evensong in the Cathedral, and heard a good anthem by Travers, and an indifferent sermon by the Archdeacon of Hereford.

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