The Henson Journals

[194]

Friday, September 30th, 1921.

A woeful morning, interviewing divers clergymen about a discipline case. The dreadful thing about such cases is their irreparableness. There is no locus poenitentiae [room for penitence] open to the fallen. Finally I decided that the severe course was the only right one, and accordingly I wrote to the culprit announcing his fate, and to the Archbishop of York reporting my decision.

I took Archdeacon Spooner for a walk in the park. We observed the woefully dilapidated state of the "Wishing Temple", and, on our return to the Castle, I wrote to the Secretary of the Ecclesiastical Commission asking that it might be repaired.

I bought Raven's "Christian Socialism 1848–1854". It occurred to me that I might entitle the Edinburgh Article, "Christian Socialism, Old and New", and place this book at the head of it. He writes well, and in an ardent spirit, but is farther gone in this Socialist madness than I had supposed.

"If Christianity be a universal religion, it must be that the Socialists, however crude their opinions, or unjust their antagonisms, have discovered some real need of the human heart which that religion ought to recognize and satisfy."

It is difficult to follow this reasoning. A Religion may be universal in the sense that it is essentially true & everywhere necessary, not in the sense that it allows & satisfies every political & economical programme, which men frame and seek to obtain.

[195]

I decided to try my hand at a species of composition which might, conceivably, come within my range, viz. the letter to a Young Man attaining the Age of 21. William will serve me as an occasion, & my thoughts for him may, perhaps, give actuality & feeling to what I write, which I take to be the essential conditions of success in that kind of writing.

Lord Scarbrough & his Countess with Lady Maxse came to lunch, and were shown over the Castle. They expressed much interest, and were, I think, interested. It surprised me to find that they had not seen it before.

Scarcely had they taken their departure before William was at the door with the car to take us to Walworth Castle, where I was to spend the week–end, & everybody (i.e. Ella, the Archdeacon, & Lucy) was to have tea. We were shown the gardens which are extensive; and the Park which is well–timbered. Particularly interesting were the two "Walworth chestnuts" – immense trees which, like the Banyan trees of India, have extended themselves by the rooting of their branches, & now cover much ground. I have never seen anything at all like them. There is a mission church, formed by the knocking together of 2 cottages, just outside the grounds. It is regularly supplied from Heighington, but there are only a very few families served by it, & these might just as well go to church at Denton. This multiplication of small churches is a calamitous blunder.

[196]

Walworth Castle is an impressive building with two flanking towers. It has an Elizabethan oriel window, in which some of the original glass yet lingers. Modern windows have been generally inserted, & the old entrance has been walled up. I have my room appointed in the older part of the house. The bed is said to have been occupied by James I. In the tower, a pleasant little sitting room has been arranged. Sir Alfred Palmer tells me that his father was the creator of Jarrow. I thought of Bede, and, remembering the dismal waste of industrial dwellings & works which now encircles his church, groaned inwardly. "That is a great responsibility for any man to carry," I observed dubiously.

We dinned pleasantly enough, and after dinner sate for nearly two hours together in the library, but our conversation never rose above the level of the pettiest chatterboxing, and we went off to bed about 11 p.m. with nothing to remember but a vague babble. Perhaps, this is ethically superior to an intercourse which has deposited in the memory a series of brilliant but bitter gibes, or lodged some resentment in the mind, or given the start to some suspicion. The family appears to consist of a son, three daughters, and a lady who might be either a visitor or a governess. They have lived here for the last 8 years, renting the house from a gentleman named Aylmer, whose proclivities would seem to be those of the sportsman, if an inference may be safely drawn from the trophies which fill the house.

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