The Henson Journals

[111]

14th Sunday after Trinity, September 17th, 1922.

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A beautiful morning, very comforting after the rain and wind of last night. I feel curiously unable to address these C.L.B. lads this morning. Neither the mood, nor the thoughts, nor even the words, are with me. Why is this? Why should the presence of guests in the house have so disabling an effect on me? Why should I be at the mercy of my immediate circumstances in this absolute & determining measure? Those stern moralists of an older time who insisted on tying the clergyman to an arbitrary & severe but congruous habit of living were perhaps not mistaken. "The new wine must be put into fresh wine skins". To witness to, and continually proclaim, the truths of Eternity is a role not easily played on the stage, & in the garments of conventional living. Yet, in degree, this is the very problem of discipleship itself: & the logic of asceticism would require the layman to follow the clergyman to the cell or the desert: and this is the case of Christianity is a reductio and absurdum. For Christianity is beyond all question a social religion, and it claims to be the way of life for all mankind, not for the handful of spiritual aristocrats who can leave the world to gain their souls. "The Son of Man came eating & drinking", and he was on that account reviled as 'a gluttonous man & a winebibber, the friend of publicans & sinners'. Clearly his criticks regarded normal living as grossly scandalous in a religious teacher, as Papists look upon a priest's marriage.

[112]

Undoubtedly in dealing with boys I am at great disadvantage, for not only do I play no games, but I have no sons. Neither the memories of school nor the continuing experiences of home assist me. I am reduced to imagining what boys think, feel, and desire: & this purely theoretic basis of my addresses to them makes all I say artificial, stilted, and powerless. They attract and at the same time dismay me. In a diocese abounding in working lads this must be held to be a serious misfortune: for it is generally said, perhaps with truth, that boys like me, so that, if I could handle them intelligently, I might do much good. As it is, I miss my opportunities. This C.L.B. languishes: largely, I suspect because of my failure.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8a.m. My guests all attended, but of the household only Alexander & one maid. After breakfast Ernest accompanied me to Windlestone, where I preached in the open air at a Church Parade in the Park. Colonel Boase was present, & afterwards inspected the lads. I was struck by the good sense, good humour, & individual discrimination of his remarks to them. Sir Timothy Eden has displayed much zeal and capacity in conducting this camp. I promised to have the boys to Auckland in the spring. We returned to the Castle for lunch. We left the Castle again at 5.5 p.m., and motored to West Hartlepool, where I preached at S. Aidan's Church. Knowlden has just completed 25 years of ministry in that parish. There was a large congregation, and alas! there was much coughing!

[113] [symbol]

Before the service a gentleman named Youngman came in to the Vestry and informed me that, on behalf of an anonymous friend, he had just sent a cheque for five thousand pounds (£5000) to the Diocesan Fund for improving the incomes of the poorer clergy. He friend was insistent that his anonymity should be jealously guarded, and not even the Bishop was privily to pierce it. I expressed my satisfaction at this timely and liberal gift. Knowlden informed me that Mr Youngman was an excellent man, once a churchwarden in S. Aidan's, but, unable to satisfy his soul with Mattins, & therefore compelled to transfer himself to a neighbouring church, in which Mattins had given place to Choral Eucharist. It is strange, significant, & from some points of view disconcerting, that this disgust of the long–established use–and–wont of the Church of England should disclose itself in a strong, straight layman, who had the aspect of a typical Protestant churchwarden. For I do not think the drift back to the abandoned Catholic system can be arrested just at the preference of the one service over the other. The Mass will finally bring back everything else: and that is the strength of the "Anglo–Catholicks". All the old fashioned "High" Churchmen, who pride themselves on their loyalty to the Tractarian tradition, think they can call a halt at substituting a Choral Celebration for Mattins, and no doubt the change is welcomed by many: but the Choral Celebration quickly becomes the Mass, and with the Mass must necessarily come what the Mass involves, & historically is bound up with.

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