The Henson Journals

[120]

Monday, January 17th, 1921.

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I attended a "Missionary Breakfast" at an adjoining café. There was a good muster of the clergy, sufficient food, and an asphyxiating atmosphere. After the feeding, I made a short & rambling speech, which I hope did no harm. The Archdeacon of Uganda made a speech, & then I gave the Benediction, & we dispersed.

Aglionby came to see me about the "Procession of Witness" on Good Friday. He appears to have moved far from his hereditary evangelicalism, for he projects a parochial mission with Mirfield Fathers as Missioners.. He denounces Mattins, and exalts the "Choral Eucharist", which he has introduced after "a teaching Mission" from some "Father" or other! His contention is that the working–people find this at once more edifying & more attractive. The suggestion that the Church of E. had taken up a definite position with respect to the Holy Communion & that this was not reconcileable with non–communicating attendance had of course no importance for him. He is evidently moving quickly towards full–blown "Anglo–Catholicism".

I wrote to George, and walked for an hour & a half with Canon Gouldsmith, learning much about men & matters in this diocese under Bishop Moule's regime. It is evident enough that my sainted predecessor ought never to have been made a Bishop. He had many gracious personal qualities, & he was both a fine scholar & a minor poet, but he had the sentimentalism of a schoolgirl, and the feeble credulity of an Evangelical curate. He could see through no humbug, and refuse [121] [symbol] no beggar. Hence he bequeathed to his successor in the See the most disastrous of all legacies, a thoroughly unsatisfactory clergy!

After an early dinner, we went to the Victoria Hall for the C.M.S. annual meeting. There was a considerable attendance, but the Hall was not crowded. On the platform were most of the local clergy. Gouldsmith presided, then I spoke, & was followed by the Archdeacon of Uganda. The meeting began at 7.30 p.m. and was over by 9.15 p.m. Then Clayton & I motored back to the Castle arriving about 10.45 p.m.

Was this considerable expenditure of time and energy really worth while? All my time, and all my energy are owed to my work, but they are so wholly inadequate to its demands that any frittering away of them would be the height of folly. Yet it is hard to know what engagements are really worth my undertaking, & only experience can teach me what to accept, and what to avoid. Here in Sunderland I have, perhaps, conciliated the rather considerable section of the religious folk whose one & only interest is C.M.S: I have shaken hands with a number of clergy and laity, whom it is important that I should be on good terms with. This is all to the good, and, if I had not spent the time in Sunderland, I might have spent it worse elsewhere. I get the impression that the clergy are a better set in Sunderland, and are working more successfully, than in most parts of the diocese. There are some younger men ̶ Lasbrey, Aglionby, Gresthorpe, ̶ who are keen, & some of the seniors also are certainly of a superior quality.

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