The Henson Journals

[298] ^[Note that HHH loses 20 page numbers]^

3rd Sunday after Easter, April 17th, 1921.

The spell of wintry weather continues. There are from time to time essays at snowing, and more often showers of icy rain, driven by a high & bitter wind. But the spring asserts itself in episodes of sunshine, and the aspect of the country, over which the verdant mantle of summer is clearly beginning to creep, helps the delusion that winter lies behind us. I celebrated in the Chapel at 8 a.m. Wilson communicated: one of the maids fainted: both William and James were absent. It was very cold.

After lunch Wilson, Clayton, and I motored to Jarrow, and there, in the old church in which the Venerable Bede is said to have worshipped, I instituted Mr Ritson, the newly–appointed Rector. The church was filled with a congregation which included old Utrick Ritson of Muggleswick. The singing of the choir struck me as unusually good, and generally I was pleased with the service. In the course of my sermon I allowed myself to make a few observations on the strike. We had tea with the Curate (Revd F. C. Tymms) who seems to be working well. Canon Loxley was for a very long time, I think, 27 years, the Rector of Jarrow, and I was assured that his work had left lasting and excellent impressions on the people. There was nothing to indicate any such extremes of "Anglo–Catholicism" as those which obtain in his present parish, S. Oswald's, Durham. Beyond the customary two candles on the re–table, I observed nothing suggestive of "Catholick" teaching.

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