The Henson Journals
Tue 21 June 1921
Volume 30, Page 31
[31]
Tuesday, June 21st, 1921.
The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's,
Is – not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be, – but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means: a very different thing!
No abstract intellectual plan of life
Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws,
But one, a man, who is man & nothing more,
May lead within a world which (by your leave)
Is Rome or London, not Fool's paradise.
Browning: "Bishop Blougram's Apology
These lines are a fair criticism of Tawney's Economics.
Yet another letter from the inexhaustible Begbie! He presses me to "lead a national crusade for personal righteousness"!! I suppose that in all the population of these islands, there is no man less qualified by temperament, training, taste, age, & position than the present Bishop of Durham for the leading of any crusade whatever.
I spent the morning in writing a short sermon for use in the Cathedral next Sunday. There is no more difficult subject for the modern preacher than that which I must perforce take next Sunday – the subject of prayer.
The Durham Regatta started today. In the evening a drizzling rain began to fall, breaking a very long spell of dry weather.
This pestilent strike discloses no prospect of settlement.