The Henson Journals

[60]

Whit Monday, May 21st, 1923.

Before leaving Scarborough to return to Auckland, I walked round the bay with the Vicar. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the water looked blue & friendly within the circle of verdant shore. Holiday–makers were in all directions going forth to their pleasure with eyes aflame with joyful expectancy. The trains were dilatory but empty. I left at 10.30 a.m., and reached Darlington at 2 p.m., where William met me with the car. I found the Park swarming with people who were attending a Temperance Fete.

Clayton had a party of Knutsford men to Evensong in the Chapel. Sykes from Middlesborough, and Pestle from Durham read the lessons, and I addressed them.

Sykes spent the night here. I had some talk with him about the ecclesiastical situation, and was rather distressed to find how essentially anarchic his modes of thinking were, though he is evidently a sensible & honest man. The very notion of discipline seems to have perished from clerical minds. That anything seems desirable is sufficient authority for adopting it however it may conflict with what is prescribed, and with what we have pledged ourselves to observe. The assumption that the legal subscriptions possess no moral obligation appears to be both general and absurd. The restoration of the notion of official responsibility is a primary requirement of our time.

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