The Henson Journals

[91]

Tuesday, June 19th, 1923.

I spent the morning in writing a long letter to the 'Times' on Prayer Book Revision. In this I emphasized the fact that only as the first step in the Restoration of Discipline was P. B. Revision worth attempting. I also took occasion to call attention to the smallness of electoral rolls in London, & suggested that it seemed to indicate that "Anglo–Catholicism" alienated rather than attracted the people.

Wright from S. Francis came to see me. He was in a highly excited & fanatical state, spoke of going to the tropics to save souls, and delivered seething like a denunciation of me & my ways! I gather that Warner is an ignorant & tactless jack–ass, who tries to shelter himself by making free use of my name!

The mason who was giving the finishing touches to the "dilapidations" of the containing wall round the bowling green, is a "comfortable prophet". He assures me that 'if I live another hundred years, the bulging wall will yet be standing". But Caröe, a more authoritative seer, said that it might fall any day now!

I returned to old M r Eade the very interesting account of Aycliffe Church, which he lent me on Sunday. Apparently the proper pronunciation of the name is Jackley i.e. locus guercorum, the place of oaks. This explains the acorns and oakleaves [sic] which are carved on the remarkable priest's tomb–stone, now preserved in the church.

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