The Henson Journals

[50]

Advent Sunday, November 28th, 1920.

Thirty two years have slipped away since I was instituted as Vicar of Barking in Barking Church on Advent Sunday. I had been only six months a priest, and I had no pastoral experience whatever, for my brief experience as Head of the Oxford House was not pastoral. If it was sinful for me to put my hand to that great work, the guilt must fall mainly on the Bishop of S. Alban's (Claughton), and the Bishop Suffragan of Colchester (Blomfield), who both urged me to take the living, when it came within my reach by title of my fellowship. May God forgive my presumption, and my blunders!

Accompanied by Maish I motored to Stockton, & there preached twice, first in Holy Trinity Church (a hideous building with galleries), & then in S. James's. There were large congregations in both, the last being crowded to excess, with the Mayor & Corporation together with a host of Buffaloes in regalia. I preached to them on Christianity & Progress, taking occasion to speak decisively against the method of the strike & the lock–out. In both sermons I was much bothered by coughing! The two parsons, J.B. Purvis of Holy Trinity, & Mr Loney of St James's, appear to be hard–working clergymen. Both are Durham men. Purvis has but completed a year in his present parish: Loney has been no less than 17 in his. We were back in the Castle soon after 10 p.m. The weather has become much milder, but this morning there was mist, & this evening it rained.

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