The Henson Journals

[48]

Monday, February 16th, 1920.

Ella went off to London after breakfast; I cleared up my room, and wrote to Ernest admonishing him to make an end of side–shows, & devote himself to the proper business of his residence in Oxford.

The Bible & Prayer Book Examiners ̶ Davis, Lushington, Carpenter, Tallents and another ̶ lunched here, and afterwards had their annual meeting. Parker of Burwarton came also to lunch.

The papers give considerable space to Jowett's sermon in Durham cathedral. A foolish incumbent, said to be an ex–Baptist, Revd. P. J. Casey, Vicar of Wheatley Hill made, or tried to make, a protest, and was forcibly removed while the congregation sang. "When I survey the wondrous cross"! Otherwise everything seems to have passed well enough, and the popular sympathy was disclosed not only by the attendance of the Mayor & Corporation in State, but also by the attitude of the crowds inside and outside the Cathedral. It will be interesting to note the next performance of the E.C.U.

William came to be prepared after dinner: we dealt with the Lord's Day.

Mrs Humphrey Ward wrote to me. She has been having "a long & amusing talk with Lord Haldane about the Church Assembly Act". I suspect that it is precisely that temper of "amusement" which has paralysed the whole opposition to "Life & Liberty". You cannot fight the dervishes of fanaticism with jests and gibes. "Life & Liberty" has been in deadly earnest all the time.

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