The Henson Journals

[147]

Wednesday, February 2nd, 1921.

Three years ago I set out from this house to be consecrated in Westminster Abbey as Bishop of Hereford. Shall I ever forget the emotions and resentments of that time? Even in the most solemn moments of the great service my mind was divided between attention, and the expectation of some fanatical disturbance. Now after these years, I think the resentment has died away, & I regard with a kind of pitying wonder the behaviour of my opponents and calumniators. But undoubtedly, my confidence in the Bishops received a rude shock. I could never think other than meanly of their intelligence, their knowledge, and their equity. I hold them to be sincere but timorous men, of a pinched outlook and narrow sympathies, not to be trusted as judges or as leaders.

I spent the day at the National Assembly, to no good purpose, & with a deepening sense of spiritual exile. I spoke twice, but without any effect.

I dined with Sir John & Lady Struthers. Lord Sydenham & his wife were there, and others, whose names I failed to catch. There was also an unpleasantly dogmatick female of the angular type, who appeared to be obsessed with the "Jewish Peril". She was Mrs Webster, the authoress of a work on the French Revolution, which has had a large sale, & is a very lop–sided version of the history.

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