The Henson Journals

[97]

Christmas Day December 25th, 1921.

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Among my Christmas gifts was a letter from some hundreds of the Unemployed in West Hartlepool. It ran thus:

My dear Bishop of Durham,

I am now taking the pleasure of writing you on behalf of the Committee and the Unemployed of West Hartlepool for your visit to us on Friday Dec. 9, and for the Address you gave to us in the Town Hall, and for the Words of inspiration and Hope that there was in it and that we had a friend and Brother who was in Sympathy with us and we hope to have the pleasure of hearing you again and now we take the opportunity for to join in wishing you a merry Christmas & a Happy New Year and with the dawn of a New Year may it bring with it a dawn of happiness & work & hope for all is the Wish of Robt Stevens and the Unemployed.

Then follow 273 names of workless men with their occupation, number of family, and the time during which they had been unemployed. There is something pathetic about this, and, perhaps, it is not without a certain importance: but there is a monstrous amount of unreality in everything connected with "Labour", as well employed as unemployed. However, I think I shall allow myself to assume that this document is genuine.

I preached in S. Anne's, and afterwards celebrated the Holy Communion. After lunch we all motored into Durham, and attended Evensong in the Cathedral. Three carols were sung very sweetly before the Benediction. We had tea with the Bishop of Jarrow & Mrs Quirk. I called on the Lillingstons. That poor lady seems as ill as ever. The car showed signs of trouble which alarmed William, but he finally decided to venture the return journey; and brought us back to Auckland without accident.

The weather has been brilliant throughout the day: & the temperature fairly high. A green Yule indeed!

[98] [symbol]

Ralph sent me a very acute and effectual criticism of Gore's book, the gist of a review which he wrote in the "Church Family Newspaper", and which I had not seen. "Of course my criticism was much more civil in tone than this summary, but the points were clearly put, and are I think unanswerable. The fact is that it is a poor book: the Bishop is playing to a rather contemptible gallery." Then he turns to the actual situation: – "I suppose a determined attempt will be made to drive all opponents of traditionalism out of the church. If the differences among Liberals were not so serious, I should be in favour of sinking them in presence of our common enemy. As things are, I am disposed to support the Churchmen's Union and its organ, while maintaining my own independence. The younger Evangelicals are not over–intelligent, but I think their hearts' are in the right place."

If only "liberal" clergymen would leave the difficult polemic which absorbs them, out of the pulpits, and would address themselves as good pastors to the questions which are really interesting to the people, they might be accepted in the parishes: though we should but substitute Socialists for hereticks!

The common level of parochial life lies far lower than any useful discussion of the bases of belief: and the intellectual quality of parochial congregations is far too poor to make such discussion edifying. Let a clergyman succeed in getting a reputation for "advanced opinions", the local papers will "puff" him energetically enough, and his church may quickly attract the cranks & the conceited from a wide area. They, in their turn, create an "atmosphere" the worst in the world – flippant, vain, amazingly irreverent & dogmatic. The parson is shaped by his hearers, and echoes their views. It is astonishing to observe the rapidity and completeness with which he divests himself of pastoral feeling, of parochial responsibility, and of any measure of charitable consideration. This is the opportunity of the other Fanaticks.

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