The Henson Journals

[212]

All Souls Day, Thursday, November 2nd, 1922.

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William motored me to Darlington, where I took the 10.35 a.m. train to Oxford, and arrived there, after changing at Banbury, & waiting about 1/2 an hour, at 4.35 p.m. The motor met me, & carried me to All Souls, where I was hospitably received at the Warden's Lodgings. There was a pleasant party for the Gaudy. The Latin Speech was unusually intelligible, humourous , and well delivered. I sate by Headlam, who was rather depressed by the sudden death of Ld Buchanan Gray this afternoon at Council, and he talked about ecclesiastical affairs. He told me that, when I was appointed a bishop, a number of High Churchmen breakfasted with Lloyd George to talk over so hateful an appointment. The Prime Minister explained his view of the duty he owed to the National Church, and said that he held himself bound to exercise his patronage in what he honestly thought to be the interest of the Church. He thought that the greatest weakness of the Church lay in its lack of preachers, and he had appointed Canon Henson because he was one of the best preachers in the Church. Headlam assured me that he had received this from one who was present. This does not give a very satisfying impression of the P.M.'s judgement in rebus ecclesiasticis.

[213]

I had some talk with W. P. Ker about a subject for the Rede Lecture. He said it should be concerned with the XVIIth century, as that was a period concerning which I had knowledge, and suggested "The Cambridge Platonists". But would that not sound too theological, or even too controversial? What alternatives are there? I have thought of the following:

Gregory of Tours and the Venerable Bede – a parallel and a contrast.

Cuthbert Tunstall. or John Cosin

Archbishop Williams.

Witchcraft.

Edmund Burke.

The truth is that the years during which my mind has been tied down to the trivialities, which engage the attention of English ecclesiasticks, have sterilized my understanding, wasted my life, and emptied my memory Only when I find myself compelled to put hand to a serious enterprize do I discover how low I have been dragged by my professional obesssions!

I withdrew from the company shortly before midnight, and returned to the Warden's Lodgings, and so to bed.

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