The Henson Journals

[19]

Monday, March 20th, 1922.

The formal invitation to preach at Windsor Castle arrived. Time was when such a missive would have raised a flutter of pleasurable excitement. Now it only moves a sense of annoyance at the waste of time, & an amused consciousness of one's general shabbiness in the matter of garments! Yet I am as loyal a citizen as any other, and have no other feelings towards their Majesties than that of regard & duty.

Clayton and I left the castle at 1.25 a.m., & motored to Sunderland, where I preached to a large congregation of Women, members of the Mothers' Union in S. Pauls Hendon. My sermon, on "marriage", was originally written for S. Peter's, Hereford, and it was rather "over the heads" of the audience, but they were very attentive, if somewhat puzzled! After having tea with the Mackays, we went on to South Shields. The weather, which had been very cold, now worsened into a blizzard, which gave a touch of heroism to William's driving. In South Shields we went to the parish church, and there I confirmed 139 candidates. We returned to Auckland directly the service was over; a violent snow–storm was in progress all the time; we arrived at the castle at 10 p.m.

I have a letter from Lord Aberdeen, a kind of unofficial 'Whip' begging me to be in my place in the House of lords for the last stages of the Irish Bill, which he appears to think is in some danger of being destroyed by amendment.

[20] [symbol]

March 20th, 1922.

My dear Dean,

Very reluctantly I must decide not to join your "True Temperance Clerical Committee"– The inevitable interpretation of my signing a declaration of the kind you propose wd be that I think a young man wd be wiser to drink alcohol moderately than not to drink at all. Now in the actual circumstances of life in modern society, I don't think this is the case. In a great industrial community like that over which I preside, total abstinence is the wisest course for most young men: & I am always pleased when I hear that any particular young fellow is an abstainer. Take my chauffeur, who is an abstainer. I wd be really grieved if I heard that he had started (albeit temporally) to drink alcohol. If I was analysing the social situation, I wd probably have to ascribe much of the responsibility for the ill effect of alcohol drinking to the fanaticism of teetotalism: but we must take facts as they are.

You can always count on me to oppose Prohibition, and any other essay in irrational & tyrannous social legislation: but on the Pauline principal, "Take thought for things honourable in the sight of all men," I must [21] [symbol] not do something which would encourage procedures which I think practically unwise, & give the impression that I was disposed to a moral laxity which is far from my approval.

Yours aff.

Herbert Dunelm:

The Dean of Exeter.

I don't suppose one would feel like this about wine drinking in France or Italy; or about cider drinking in Hereford and Devon, or about beer drinking in rural England and Germany: but the kind of drinking in our industrial centres and the conditions under which it proceeds are so unwholesome & so unfavourable to self–respect that one must needs look upon it with a doubtful eye. Sometimes one sees the truth best in a concrete instance. I take my William, and I consider the practical problem in connexion with his behaviour. How could I preach to him the superiority of moderate drinking over total abstinence? What I do say is to this effect: "You are a very sensible fellow to be a total abstainer: as a chauffeur total abstinence is almost a professional obligation. Since you abstain of your own free will, the self–sacrifice is morally strengthening: if you were legally compelled to abstain, your self–respect would be injured rather than helped". And so much appears to me to be true, & wisely to be spoken.

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