The Henson Journals

[110]

6th Sunday after Trinity, July 8th, 1923.

The heat last night was very exhausting. This morning the sky is overcast, & there is a feeling of thunder. Ella and I went to the Cathedral at 8 a.m., & received the Holy Communion together. Canon Simpson as the Celebrant, & the service was actually that provided in the Prayer Book, reverently but rather rapidly read. The Communicants were mostly of the female sex.

After breakfast a telegram from Arthur arrived. It ran thus:

'Removal now impossible serious change during night Marion passing away, still unconscious.'

We tried to telegraph that, unless sent for, we would arrive tomorrow. But no telegram could be sent. It seemed difficult to justify cancelling public engagements, & there was obviously nothing we could do if we did get to Birchington today.

I preached in the Temple Church repeating the sermon which I preached in York Minster last Sunday. There was a large & attentive congregation. The service was curiously congruous with my thoughts. One of the psalms was the funeral psalm, number 39: and the lesson was David's lament over Jonathon: the anthem was "Justorum Animoe in mann Dei sunt": & after the service the "Dead March" in 'Saul' was played. This was with reference to the death of Maurice Hewlett who was a member of one of the Inns. We lunched at the Inner Temple. Mr Justice Banks presided. Darling was there, & very pleasant.

[111]

I had some talk with Banks about the Church in Wales, expressing my surprise that so 'advanced' a Churchman as the Bishop of Monmouth should be appointed to a bishoprick. He said that if it had been known that he was as "advanced" as he had shown himself to be, he would certainly not have been elected! There was an Anglo–Catholick lawyer, Hensoll, in the company. He is chancellor of several dioceses. He has the shifty evasive look so commonly noticeable in the eyes of men who practice confession. I didn't take to him. Later, I preached in St Pauls Cathedral to a very large congregation, though not so large as might normally have been expected. My subject was "Truthfulness"; I connected my argument with Prayer Book Revision. It was a serious effort to cleanse the Church of England from the taint of insincerity. There came to supper the Headmaster of Westminster & Mrs Costley White.

(It is, indeed, difficult to realize that Marion has gone. She was so quiet, so unselfish, she devoted that we "took her for granted", & probably did not realize the extent to which she was over–straining her physical strength. I cannot recall any lives more entirely surrendered to the claims of others than those of my two sisters. Jennie's death in 1896 left an incurable wound on my heart: & now poor Marion's death in 1923 renews the anguish in a more poignant form. The shadows are deepening: it cannot be long before the call comes to me also.)

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