The Henson Journals

[117]

Maundy Thursday, April 1st, 1920.

A damp unpleasant day from start to finish. I felt most woefully unequal to my work, but I determined to go through with it. Ella accompanied me to Credenhill, where I confirmed 14 candidates; and then we lunched with Miss Eckroyd. This lady was good enough to express much sympathy with me in my initial difficulties, which, I suppose, appeared more formidable to her than to me. She seems to have been a friend of Bishop Percival. Then we motored to Wellington, where I confirmed 22 candidates. The church, dedicated to S. Margaret, is interesting: the parson (Rev. C. P. Lee) is, I conjecture, a stiff High Churchman, and has a clerical manner, but he did not impress me badly on the whole. After having tea in the vicarage, we returned to Hereford, and found Ruth Spooner there. Captain Hamilton came again to see me about the Vicar of Breinton. The poor man seems to be unmanageable: & certainly ought to be certified. But, if his resignation is to be secured, we must keep him in the category of the legally sane until he has signed it.

Dr Sparrow Simpson writes on the Prospects of Union between the Eastern and Anglican Churches in the new Quarterly, "The Christian East":–

"What would contribute enormously towards complete confidence on the part of the Greeks & to their official acknowledgment of our ministerial succession, would be a clear and definite statement by our own authorities that Anglicans believe ordination to confer an indelible character & grace of the Holy Spirit. If the Lambeth Conference were to frame some resolution of this kind, it would satisfy what Eastern theologians desire to know".

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