The Henson Journals

[162]

11th Sunday after Trinity, August 12th, 1923.

I preached at Mattins in the little church. One of the choirmen's cassocks & surplices served to cover my canonical nakedness. The congregation half filled the church, & was very attentive. My sermon was an extemporaneous reminiscence(!) of the sermon on the Name, Christian, which has done frequent duty in the diocese of Durham! Miles's choir did him credit. On the whole I was much pleased with the service, which was just what an Anglican service ought to be – simple, reverent, congregational. Yet who can be sure that the next parson will not upset it all, emptying the church with a poor imitation of the Popish Mass, & teaching such of the people as he can to despise & repudiate all that now they know & respect? Mr Boyce is 75, & talks of resigning. There is really not great probability that his type of churchmanship will be repeated in his successor.

Miles affects to believe nothing, & allows himself in a good deal of dogmatic unbelief to the alarm & distress of his mother. She makes the mistake of arguing with him, & the still worse mistake of forcing me to do so. The only effect is to draw from him crude & foolish statements, which his vanity compels him to defend. His knowledge is curiously small, & he has all a young man's omniscience, but argument is the very worst method of rescuing him from his predicament.

[163]

I preached again at Evensong, when the congregation was larger. Including the choir & clergy I counted as many as 26 grown males. This cannot much exceed one fourth of the grown males in the parish. Yet this was plainly a larger congregation than was usual. The service was reverent, and hearty. I have never preached to a more attentive congregation. They listened closely both to the lessons and to the sermon. I took occasion to speak particularly of the importance, the value, and the responsibility of the Choir. This I did with the object of strengthening Miles's hands. He has taken up the work of Choirmaster with much ardour. It may well be the case that he will find his way back to belief along the road of service more surely than along the road of argument.

Lord & Lady Huntingfield called this afternoon. She is an American. Incidentally she told me that the parishioners of Dennigton are much aggrieved at the "Anglo–Catholicism" of their parson. The living is in the patronage of the incumbent's family, and the present Vicar is the son of his predecessor. The late Vicar was well–liked by the people, who were prepared to welcome his son, but they cannot abide his 'papistry'. It is impossible to deny either the injury inflicted on them, or the ill–faith of the parson. Yet the Bishop can do nothing, whatever he may think or say.

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