The Henson Journals

[164]

Monday, February 27th, 1922.

My dear Michell,

Your letter, dated Jany 20th, reached me this morning, and I reply to it at once in order to show you how pleased I was to receive it, and to give you no kind of excuse for not writing again. I turned up my Journal, and found under the date of June 15th 1917, that I fell in with you in the street of Durham, & took you in to lunch with my wife in the Deanery. We had some talk together, and, when we parted, I think we both felt that our friendship would be something more lasting than a day's chance contact. I am greatly interested to hear of your farming experiences. There are no doubt difficult times to worry through, but, if men have faith and grit enough to hold on, things generally turn out well in the end. In some ways work on the land has a special charm of its own: certainly it is a manly and healthy life, in which a true man can serve God and his fellows.

I am very pleased indeed to know that you want books to help you to understand the Bible: and I shall put up a small parcel for you, & send it as soon as I can find time to get to my bookseller. Much knowledge has come to hand in recent years, & we read the Bible now rather differently than in the past. This has caused some alarm in the minds of old–fashioned people, who don't understand the reason & meaning of the change: but I am sure that this alarm is not necessary or reasonable. You have "hit the nail on the head" exactly, when you say: –

"In all my perplexity I know only one certainty – that Christ is my Saviour. I feel more positive of His presence every day, and am correspondingly happier."

Dear Boy, you did me good when you sent me that confession of faith: for there – in Christ's personal fellowship with us where nothing comes between His Spirit and ours – is the rock of our discipleship. S. Paul felt like that when he wrote "I am not ashamed, for I know Him whom I have believed" (2. Timothy I. 12). And you may be sure that, although you have few books, & may not know all that the great Scholars have come to [165] know, so long as you pray for the help of the Holy Spirit, and read the Bible with the one purpose of understanding it rightly in order that you may obey it faithfully, you will never go far astray.

When you write to me again, I want you to tell me more about your Church life. What provision have you for public worship? and how often are you able to receive the Holy Communion? Have you some like–minded neighbours with whom you can have religious intercourse? In fact, tell me as much as you can about the conditions of your life, that I may have a true picture of you in my mind.

I see that the population of Canada is approaching nine millions. When we remember that in England under Queen Elizabeth there were probably not more than 3 1/2 or 4 million people, we see how little connection there may be between numbers and real greatness. For then England was indeed great. It is enough to remember that Shakespeare, Raleigh, and Hooker were living then. Where are there such men now?

Public affairs here are in great confusion. Nearly 2,000,000 men are unemployed, & there are as yet no secure indications that we have 'touched bottom'. We didn't think when we drew the sword in 1914 that we should come to such distresses and distractions. I have been busily engaged in dedicating war–memorials. There will hardly be a parish in the country which will not have a memorial of some sort: I hope the effect will be unifying: there is great danger of the nation falling asunder into mutually unintelligible factions, & the memory of a great common effort involving such heavy common loss, might hold the people together.

Mrs Henson sends you her kind regards.

May God bless and direct you!

Yours affectionately

Herbert Dunelm:

(Bishop of Durham).

Michell Pierce Esq

Biggar P.O.

Sask. Canada

[166]

The Revd William Anthony Blackwall, Vicar of Middleton S. George, came to see me at my request. I offered him the living of S. Cuthbert, Bensham, vacated by Gadd's acceptance of Burnmoor. He has been 18 years in Orders, and has spent the last 12 in his present parish. He is a fine figure of a man, over six feet in height, & well–built. I gave him the particulars of the parish as I received them from Gadd, and send him away to consider & decide on his course.

The weather became very tempestuous. I had promised William to view a football match in the Park got up by the Y.M.C.A., but my visit was cut short by the rain. The field is a mudpit.

Broadbelt writes to say that he has decided to accept the living of St Mary's, New Wortley, Leeds. The new Vicar of Bishop Auckland will start without colleagues. Both Glynne and Broadbelt have accepted preferment. This may not be altogether a disadvantage, though it will be an immediate inconvenience. But I am sorry to lose another of the better of the younger clergy from the diocese. It would not matter so much if new men were coming in, but as it is the loss is complete.

Both the "Yorkshire Post" and the "Times" report my observations about improper methods of ecclesiastical finance.

Hearne's "Remarks & Collections" (vol. XI. Oxford Hist. Society's edition) contains the "account of King Charles I's visit at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire from a paper sent me by Mr John Jones, curate of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdonshire, who received it of the Revd Mr Thomas Ferrar of Little Gidding." This account is a very interesting picture of the "highest" Anglicanism of Laud's age. It appears that Holy Communion was celebrated on the first Sunday of every month: that the Book of Homilies was read "often on Holydays": that the Book of Martyrs' was read at meal–times along with the Bible. The present–day "Anglo–Catholick" would curve the lip of scorn at such gross Protestantism! The good folk of Little Gidding would have been altogether "at sea" in an "Anglo–Catholick" sisterhood.

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