The Henson Journals

[149]

Thursday, September 30th, 1920.

We left Lund at 7.33 a.m. being politely "seen off" by Prof. Rohde. [The passage from Trelleborg to Sassenitz took about 4 hours, & made us both very uncomfortable.] The German train was very dirty, & dilapidated, but it brought us to Berlin in good time, at 9.15 p.m. There was nobody at the station to meet us, for (as we discovered later) our letters had not arrived. Through waiting for somebody, we were too late to catch the customs officer: and had to come to 33 Lützow Stofer, where the Thelwalls are now living, without our luggage except the hand bags. However we were welcomed, though plainly not expected. [I found a letter from Maish saying that Strong had offered him both a living & the domestic chaplaincy. This will be a satisfactory method of disposing of him.]

The Stettbahnhof of Berlin is a sufficiently disconcerting place to arrive at for a stranger, who is ignorant of the city, and finds the speech of the porters difficult to understand. There was a seething crowd, not very attractive to look at. It gazed with a curiosity which was hardly amicable on the two English arrivals, & one did not feel wholly comfortable in entrusting one's self to a sullen Jehu with a dilapidated cab–horse. The drive seemed endless, but at length we reached our goal, & the said Jehu received 30 mks. for his services. We ventured on some coffee on the train, but it was so beastly that we poured it out of the window. This, with two deadly–looking cakes which we boycotted, cost 10 marks. These prices must be rather tremedous for the German people who have no money but their own.

[150]

Old Bishop Billing is a stately and venerable eccleasiastic to look at. He speaks no language but Swedish, and rather prides himself on the fact. He embodies the intensely national feeling of Swedish Christianity, & is not enthusiastic about schemes of reunion with other churches. He does not share the Archbishop's desire to make the most of the ceremonial, which has survived in the Church of Sweden, & evidently sympathizes with the protests which have been appearing in the papers against the display at the Consecration in Upsala on Sept: 19th. For many years he sate in the Swedish Parliament where he gained a position of great authority. He is a sagacious man of affairs rather than a theologian or an ecclesiastic. For 14 years he was bishop of Westeräs, & then was translated to Lund, where he has reigned for 22 years. Lund is the most richly endowed of the Swedish bishopricks. His son, the new Bishop of Westeräs, is rather a modernist and supports the Archbishop.

Söderblom himself is everywhere recognized to be a man of exceptional ability, great determination, & a limitless activity. He has made the Church a power to be reckoned with, & therefore provoked against himself the dislike of the dissenters & secularists. But he sympathizes with the popular tendency to Socialism, & takes up a position towards politics rather like Gore's. He spoke to me with admiration of Lansbury! He is more secular–minded than quite comports with his position, or with his zeal for Christian union. I am reminded by him of the famous "Soapy Sam" of Oxford & Winchester. He maintains the closest personal relations with the Court & "Society", while making himself popular, & writing often to the newspapers in a popular style.

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