The Henson Journals

[69]

Monday, December 5th, 1921.

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In the course of his sermon in the cathedral yesterday, Bishop Quirk told us that my predecessor, Bishop Moule, was accustomed to read through the English Bible from Genesis to Revelation every year, and that in the last year of his life he concerned himself with committing to memory the 119th Psalm. Was this conduct, I must needs ask, wise, or wholesome, or reasonable, or, in any worthy sense, religious? It could only be justified on a view of the Bible which can with difficulty be accepted by modern Christians: for, surely, there is much in the Bible which for the purpose of edification is not worth reading, though no doubt valuable to the student of religion.

The Archbishop of York writes to me: "You are not at all singular with regard to the number of Deacons offering themselves for ordination. At the forthcoming ordination I have only two. The dearth is very serious. I hope it may soon be remedied; & it is not less serious for us in the North by the apparent reluctance of men to face the conditions of work among our industrial & independent people."

I started on the tiresome business of preparing speech to the Unemployed at Hartlepool, but made small progress.

After an early dinner I went to the Lightfoot Institute, & took the chair at a meeting of the Bible Society. There was but a small attendance, for, in spite of the plentiful talk about Christian Unity, the "undenominational" societies are all languishing. The speaker was the local postmaster, who is evidently a practised orator. The weather became suddenly mild in the course of the evening.

Clayton went in to Durham, & brought back the news that Tolliday, the Vicar of S. Cuthbert's, had died: and Thomas, the Vicar of S. Giles's was dying. This is rather depressing. Tolliday was ordained in 1902, and had been Vicar of S. Cuthbert's since 1911. He leaves a wife and children without, I fear, any adequate provision. Both these livings are in the gift of the Dean and Chapter, which will immediately have to appoint a successor to Williams at S. Mary's, Tyne dock. This sudden rush of preferment will stir aspirations in many unbeneficed bosoms!

[70]

December 5th, 1921.

Dear Lord Haldane,

Thank you much, but, so far as I can see, there is no likelihood of my being in London with or without my wife before the New Year. If we had been there, we should have accepted your kind invitation with cheerful alacrity.

This precious 'National Assembly' is developing just as I feared it would. As a business assembly it is hopeless, and it must come to being a mere machine for registering the decisions of the central clique. The minority suffers badly from the Archbishop's chairmanship: not because he is either a bad Chairman or a partisan – he is conspicuously neither – but because he is in an essentially false position, uniting in his own person the incompatible characters if Speaker and Prime Minister. The weakest part of the Assembly is its lay element. It is not representative of the really important factors. Most of the laymen strike me as well–meaning ardent folk – the type we license to read service in unconsecrated chapels – who have an insatiable appetite for the windy platitudes and sophistries of the "Life and Liberty" platform!

I hope your Lordship will look into the latest legislative baulking which the Assembly has laid on the doorstep of the Ecclesiastical Committee.

Believe me,

Yours v. sincerely,

Herbert Dunelm:

The Right Honble Viscount Haldane O.M. &c &c.

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