The Henson Journals

[17]

Friday, August 4th, 1922.

[symbol]

A beautiful day, fine and warm. After breakfast I walked for a hour with mine host, & called on his mother, a hale old lady of 84. Then we motored to Ruthwell, and inspected the famous Anglo–Celtic Cross. The minister, Mr Dinwiddic, very kindly explained it, and allowed William to take photographs. Then we called on Mrs Maitland Heriot, out hostess's sister, where we were shown a beautiful garden. After lunch, I played bowls with Eleanor and Vivian: and then, when we had had tea, I walked again with mine host. The local minister, Mr Knowles, & his sister came to dinner. He is a comparatively young man, and is said, to be a cultivated an earnest pastor, perhaps too far removed in habit and ideal from his parishioners to be wholly acceptable to them, but so obviously superior to his woeful predecessor that they cannot but welcome them. I inquired about the prospect of reunion, and he replied that within two or three years a considerable number of U. F. charges wd disappear: that the only problem now requiring solution was financial; and that the only opposition now came from a few voluntaryist congregations. He appeared to think that he Lambeth Conference Appeal aroused little interest in Scotland & that some resentment was caused by its failure to distinguish between Presbyterians & Nonconformists.

---