The Henson Journals

[77]

Monday, December 20th, 1920.

We left Wynyard at 10.30 a.m., and returned to Auckland. There I concerned myself with writing letters. In the afternoon Sir Alfred & Lady Palmer called. He was anxious to convey to me the grumblings of the people of Jarrow at the long delay in filling up the vacant incumbency. I passed on his communication at once to the patron, – Captain A. H. Chaytor K. C., Iridge Place, Hurst Green, Sussex.

I wrote to Ernest thanking him for his book, 'Walter de Wenlok, Abbot of Westminster', which has just been published. It is a very creditable & painstaking piece of antiquarian research.

I wrote to Jack Boden , who was yesterday ordained deacon by the Bishop of St Alban's. He goes as curate to Manning, Vicar of Chipping Barnet, who was once at Leytonstone when I was at Barking.

Bishop Moule was a saint, but, by his facile acceptance of really incompetent men as Ordination candidates, he left a legacy of weakness & discredit to the diocese of Durham which, on the most favourable view, will shadow & enfeeble the Church for many years. "The evil that men do lives after them". This saying is never more clearly perceived to be true than when, through mere easiness of disposition or through natural inability to distinguish between good men & bad, a bishop misuses the most difficult & awful of his powers–the right to choose & send men into the Lord's Vineyard.

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