The Henson Journals

Fri 30 March 1923

Volume 34, Page 183

[183]

Good Friday, March 30th, 1923.

Morality to the uttermost,

Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

Why need we prove would avail no jot

To make him God, if God he were not?

What is the point where himself lays stress?

Does the precept run" Believe in good

"In justice, truth, now understood

"For the first time?" – or "Believe in me.

"Who lived and died, yet essentially

"Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take

The same to his heart and for more love's sake

Conceive of the love,– that man obtains

A new truth; no conviction gains

Of an old one only, made intense

By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.

Browning 'Christmas Eve & Easter Day.

I spent the morning in trying to prepare something for the afternoon, but, of all days in the world, Good Friday is most difficult for modern preachers. I motored o West Hartlepool, and led a procession through the streets. Freddie Macdonald carried the Cross: the Mayor walked beside me, behind us were our chaplains, the Presbyterian Minister & Knowlden respectively. I preached in the Town Hall, which was crowded: & afterwards spoke to a congregation in Christ Church.