The Henson Journals

[64]

9th Sunday after Trinity, August 1st, 1920.

I went to Church at 8.30 a.m. in S. Mary–le–Strand, & there received the Holy Communion. The celebrant wore vestments, & had some Romish tricks, but I was able to recognize the Prayer–book service. After breakfasting in the Hotel, I went to the United Services Club, whither we are banished during the cleaning of the Athenaeum: & there established myself in a quiet room, where I wrote letters undisturbed. I wrote to the following:

1. George Nimmins (S.S. Eurypylus)

2. Ella

3. Knight (Holmer)

4. Philip le Measurier

5. Hugh Lyon

6. Knight (Bridstow)

7. Gow

8. Marion

I lunched at the Club, and was joined by the Archbishop of Wales, who has become strangely affectionate to me. I suspect that he has brought a "hornet's nest" about his head by giving Communion to the Prime Minister & Mrs Lloyd George at his enthronement: & looks to me as a sympathiser & possible champion. He said that Bishop Jayne entirely concurred with my estimate of Bishop Talbot: [& described the present Archbishop of York as "a spent force." This seems to me excessive & even absurd]. Lang showed no falling off in power while steering the Reunion Committee through the Conference, save that he, like Cantuar, tends to an exorbitancy in verbiage. The grace of terse & relevant speech is not conveyed by episcopal consecration!

[65]

I dined with Bishop Lawrence at Brown's Hotel, Albemarle Street. Mrs Lawrence & her sister were there. We had much pleasant conversation, in the course of which I was interested to learn something about the American bishops. Bishop Brent in his early manhood was much influenced by Bishop Hall of Vermont, then a Cowley Father, & himself contemplated joining the Order. But Hall certified the orthodoxy of Phillips Brooks, and fell under the censure of his community for doing so. This so disgusted Brent that he changed his direction, & became a more liberal man. This no doubt was the experience to which Brent referred in his speech to the Conference last Friday. Rheinlander is, in Lawrence's judgment, a very timid thinker. He is married to a sensible & rather masterful lady who "brings him down to earth". Lawrence is rather contemptuous of the Conference. "I doubt if there are a hundred persons in the United States, who attach the smallest importance to its decisions". He described the methods by which he had succeeded in raising a fund of more than £2,000,000 to provide a pension fund for the Episcopal Church. Here he became the shrewd Yankee advancing a "business proposition", & roping in dollars with calculated & unfailing success. Politeness alone restrained me from confessing the disgust I felt. Yet Lawrence is a good & most religious Bishop. Only even he cannot escape the bondage of dollar–dom.

Bishop Lawrence has recently attained the respectable age of 70 years. He gave me an amusing account of the manner in which the fact was noted in one of his parishes. In the course of the service in which he was taking part, the churchwarden announced the Bishop's age to the congregation, & offered the people's congratulations. "We have in this congregation", he said, "the best maker of cakes in the Republic: & she has excelled herself in making a birthday cake for the Bishop". The vast cake was then carried to the altar, & presented to the Bishop, who made suitable acknowledgments. This grotesque scene evidently pleased Lawrence very much: it demonstrated the sincerity of the people by the naïve simplicity of their procedure. Our ritualistic experts would be at some loss for liturgical precedents to justify it.

[I was interested to learn that Lawrence shares my feeling about Neville Talbot. His confused & incoherent speech demonstrates his paternity, but he has not so good a mental equipment as his father.]

Lawrence is a very loyal American, & will not concede anything that tells against the Republic, but he did admit (while indicating his own dissent) that competent judges held that the social & economic situation of America made it not impossible that Bolshevism would break out there sooner than in this country. This view certainly does not lack plausibility.

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