The Henson Journals

[145]

September 27th, 1920.

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We breakfasted in the Hotel. A telephone message from Fru Böstromer, whose husband I met yesterday at the Palace, invited us to lunch at the Grand Hotel, which we willingly consented to. Then we walked to Skeppsholmen and the adjoining Kastellholmen, where the naval depôts & school are located, & admired the wonderful views of Stockholm. Nothing could be more beautiful than this City as we saw ^it^ in the brilliant sunlight. We had a very pleasant lunch, and accepted an invitation to lunch tomorrow from M. Bildt, who was one of the company. [I wrote to George.] We had tea in the Grand Hotel. Pastor Svanberg called to conduct us to the Church House of the Storakyrka, where I was to give a lecture on "Parties & Tendencies within the Church of England". There was a considerable company of pastors & ladies, members of a society of Religious Research. I spoke for rather more than an hour, & was translated in suitable portions. The Archbishop was present, & when I mentioned Sanday's death & made some eulogistic remarks about him, his Grace called the audience to ^stand up^ as a token of respect. I trust these good people were edified but I doubt whether they received any very clear impression from my disjointed observations. After the lecture we had tea, and then returned to our hotel. Archbishop Söderblom bade us farewell & asked for the Ms. of my sermon in S. Clara's, that he might have it translated & published in full. Thus ends the official & public programme to which I have been pledge. [It remains that we should succeed in returning home.]

[146] [symbol]

The Archbishop gave me a note of the following notable instance of the superiority of local taste over a public department.

"In the northern part of my diocese, a beautiful Roman (i.e. Romanesque) Church from the 12th century with a central tower was restored 30 years ago. The authorities in Stockholm & some influential gentlemen in the parish adopted a scheme that has changed the exterior of the church, especially the tower, into a rococo building of the 17th century. Many farmers & yeomen, especially one churchwarden, opposed energetically. Some years ago his son showed me and the Antiquarian of the Realm, & M. Auders Zora that his father had written on the back of a large photo of the church before the restoration that he had given to the Vestry, the tragic history of those negotiations, how he had been able to have a majority in the parish assembly for a less vehement change of the shape of the church & against the opening of new windows, which have destroyed most interesting paintings etc, but how the combined forces of the artistic authority & other "cultivated" and "enlightened" people in the parish where able to have the plan adopted by another parish assembly. I shall try to find his exact words. Anyhow he writes that "the church must be restored & embellished, but it must keep its old worthy shape", & he adds "the future will give me right". This future is already here. There is no intelligent man now that does not deeply deplore that the natural taste of conservatism of the farmers did not gain the victory over the artistic authorities who are more or less dependent on the changing mode."

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