The Henson Journals

[34]

Tuesday, December 5th, 1922.

I spent the whole morning in writing letters. In the afternoon I went into Durham, & attended a meeting of the Girl Guides in the Town Hall, presided over by Lady Gainford. After having tea I returned to Auckland.

There is a large "Supplement" on Northern Ireland issued by the Times. I found a melancholy suggestiveness in the fact the Religion was totally excluded from the list of subjects dealt with. It might have been supposed that at least two considerable churches – the Protestant Church of Ireland, and the Presbyterian church – would have been concerned for the due prominence of the ecclesiastical factor in a de scription of historic Ulster: but in Ireland Religion is still an unsafe subject to handle. It kindles such fierce passions, & wakes such exasperating memories that by tacit agreement it is simply ignored. Yet there are no names in the history of Ulster more distinguished than those of Usher, Bramhall, Jeremy Taylor & Berkeley, and all were connected with Ulster.

Before going to bed, I wrote another letter to the Times on the Marriage Question, being moved thereto by two letters in that paper, which pointed the Disestablishment moral with offensive emphasis . But there is no real hope that anything can hold the zealots back on the road they have entered.

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