The Henson Journals

[107]

1st Sunday after Epiphany, January 9th, 1921.

"Nothing is morally observed which is done as the exaction of God's will, and not, even in submission as the expression of our own. Nothing is adequate to our whole moral relation to God short of the identification, through our own insight, of our duty with His will."

Oman.

This is boldly and finely said, but none the less it is a hard saying. "Not my will, but Thine be done" was said by the Holiest. There is an inevitable but quite innocent conflict between what the Divine Will ordains and the human will prefers, but it arises from natural human ignorance & infirmity, not from rebellion. The whole life proceeds under the deliberate acceptance of God's Will as right, desirable, and supreme: & this general & continuing allegiance is not infringed upon or broken by the sharp discords between duty and volition which are the shadow & the glory of human life. "Show Thou me the way that I should walk in for I lift up my soul unto Thee" is a prayer which both confesses ignorance and acknowledges that God's direction is the true Law of a man's life. "God cannot be served by setting conscience on one side and consecration on the other." Obedience to conscience is a continuing self–consecration to God's service, for Duty, the demand of the conscience, is the "stern daughter of the Voice of God".

[108] [symbol]

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. Then, after breakfast, I settled down to the unpleasing task of revising & adapting two old sermons for this afternoon & evening at Barnard Castle, for I hold with Fuller's "Faithful Minister":–

"As for our minister, he preferreth rather to entertain his people with wholesome cold meat which was on the table before, than with that which is hot from the spit, raw & half–roasted. Yet, in repetition of the same sermon, every edition hath a new addition, if not of new matters, of new affections. 'Of whom', saith St Paul, 'we have told you often, & now we tell you weeping'.

S. Paul, perhaps, would have been somewhat surprised at the application of his words, but they serve well enough to give a taking suggestion of Scriptural sanction for the eminently convenient practice of using 'old sermons'! It is both humbling and puzzling to discover, as one reads over sermons which at the time of their first delivery, were unusually sincere, and (apparently) effective, that the purpose and power seem to have evaporated. They seem to be stilted and wearisome to one's self: it is hard to think that they can be edifying to one's hearers. Almost it is true to say that this change for the worse is most observable precisely in the sermons which one remembers as having been most "successful". Probably every sermon is time–born and time–bound far more than the preacher suspects. Taken out of its envelope of conditioning circumstance, it is likely to be uninteresting, & even unintelligible.

[109]

After lunch Ella and I motored to Barnard Castle, and there I preached twice in the parish church, first, to a large congregation of women & girls, and next, at Evensong to a larger congregation of both sexes. In the course of the afternoon, the wind rose & was blowing a hurricane when we motored back to the Castle after supping at the Vicarage. The Vicar (Rev. H. W. H. Bircham) has been incumbent for more than 6 years. He seems to be a cheerful humorous man, who gets on with his neighbours, & fills his church. I was pleased with the service, which was both reverent & congregational. It was also, apparently legal! He gave me a distressing account of the squalid poverty of some of the neighbouring incumbents. His son–in–law (named, if I heard rightly Ford) said that his father owned the house in Portsmouth where Felton stabbed the Duke of Buckingham, & that the tradition was well authenticated. The new Lord Barnard is described as a brave soldier, but shy & silent. He will not take any considerable part in local affairs. Lord Glamis is said to be about to sell Streatlam Park. He is a nervous, unapproachable person. There seems little prospect of any affective laymanship developing in this part of the diocese. We had to pull up on our way home several times in order to re–light our lamps which were blown out by the wind. The weather has been unwholesomely warm. We took just an hour over the return journey, reaching the Castle at 10.10 p.m.

---