The Henson Journals

[148]

10th Sunday after Trinity, August 5th, 1923.

Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please thee: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

The idea of the collect, perhaps, is suggested by the Epistle in which S. Paul's declares the necessity of the Holy Spirit's action for all acceptable worship and service.

[^written in Greek^] The word [^Greek word^] seems to suggest the enthusiastic outpouring of exstasy, the more sober [^Greek word^] the quieter utterance of deliberate profession: "No one as he pours himself out in Divinely inspired devotion ever could say, Cursed be Jesus: & no one ever was led to the confession of faith in the Lordship of Jesus save by the Holy Spirit." S. Paul proceeds to describe the manifoldness of Divine action, & he seems to indicate the several activity of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Or is his variation of word, 'Spirit', 'Lord', 'God', only the rhetorician's dislike of repetition? Perhaps, we are too ready to find significance in apostolic language, where the sacred writer himself had no intention of more than expressing himself as well as he could.

[149]

We all went to service at the little church. We had Mattins as far as the Benedictus, then an anthem, & the Holy Communion with a sermon. The service was read reverently by Mr Jaques, the Vicar, a wooden legged man, & the preacher was an old clergyman, named Procter, whose principal claim to distinction is the fact that (in defiance of the ancient canons) he was married four times in succession! The last of these was Mrs Lawrie's sister Mabel. The sermon was a poor extemporaneous performance based on St Paul's words in the epistle. Ella & I received the Sacraments.

Later we attended Evensong in Norwell parish church. This is a capacious medieval building dedicated to St Lawrence with several interesting features. The stone seat round the base of the column in the central arcade is an arrangement which I have never seen before. The stone stair–case to the rood–loft is in excellent preservation. The Vicar, Mr Ainley, is a young–looking man who has held the living for 3 years. He was appointed by the Bishop of Manchester, who holds the patronage. He volunteered some observations about the Anglo–Catholics, from which I learned that the substance of my articles in the Manchester Guardian had appeared in one of the local newspapers. The Churchwarden, to whom he introduced me, expressed his cordial agreement with my position. Sydney, the younger of the two boys, expressed his determination to become a clergyman. But he is only 13 years old, and much may happen.

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