The Henson Journals

[59]

Monday, December 6th, 1920.

A thoroughly unsatisfactory day. I was feeling unwell, and everything tended to provoke me. The morning was frittered away in writing letters, and (eheu!) cheques. In the afternoon Wilson came to see me, and all his information was disconcerting. It appears that one way or another there will be at least another £500 to pay on account of furniture &c. before my incoming expenses are cleared off. He can suggest no method of clearing off that woeful parson at Middleton, and he reports that the Ecclesl Insurance Bldngs advise raising the amount for insuring the Castle from £45,000 to £69,000!!!

When Wilson had retired, the churchwardens from Shildon arrived to discuss the affairs of that very unattractive parish. They are honest–looking men, both ex–service men, the one an officer, the other private, & they expressed themselves very nicely, but through their language the fact glared alarmingly. That they wd give much to be rid of their parson!! He is abundantly well–intentioned & devoted, but essentially a quarrelsome jackass! Of course, there are extenuations. The poor man is a bundle of nerves, & he has an income quite inadequate to his wants. He has "put the backs up" of the older people by injudicious alterations of the service, and his adoption of "Labour" politics has offended many, perhaps most of his parishioners. The Sunday Schools are prostrate, and the finances desperate!

[60]

An ordination candidate in answer to the question as to the motives & circumstances of his application to be ordained, replies thus:–

"Since soon after my conversion at the age of thirteen, I think it came naturally to me to long to preach the Gospel of my Redeemer, & to be ordained."

I asked him what he meant by "conversion", and he explained that he had no specific experiences in mind, but only that about that time in his boyhood he was deeply impressed by Religion. This early impression has persisted. At 18 he was given a lay–reader's licence by his bishop, and has been busily engaged in religious work ever since. During the War he has been permitted even to preach in the parish churches, and, if the letters of the incumbents can be depended upon, he has done so very acceptably to the congregations. But his education has suffered deplorably. He came away from Oxford without a degree, and, after a year at Wycliffe Hall, has but scraped through the Bishop's examination. My predecessor had accepted him as a candidate for Ordination, and I have "honoured the Bill"; but his intellectual equipment is woefully inadequate. Happily he is a gentleman, & possessed of a sufficient private income. Ought I to have blessed his precocious labours? or, as I did, warned him against being puffed up by the unreal success of puerile oratory? There can be no question as to his earnestness.

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