The Henson Journals

[198]

Saturday, September 8th, 1923.

A brilliant autumn day. Yvonne Söderblom arrived, and Bishop Mann of South Florida with his wife & daughter. I met the latter at the station, & squandered the rest of the day in their company.

I wrote to that unhappy Harold kindly but sternly, hoping by the kindness to soften, and by the sternness to startle, him: but he belongs to his generation as I to mine, & the two are mutually unintelligible .

Also, I wrote to Fry, the Patronage Secretary, about the vacant livings. The letter, which the Dean of Worcester sent me last week recommending names, seemed better placed in Downing Street than in Auckland, so I enclosed it in mine.

The Editor of the Spectator writes to ask me to write a signed article for his journal. "Perhaps a kind of general stock–taking article on the position of the Church today would be most useful. On the other hand, perhaps such a subject as "the Art of Preaching", and whether or no it had decayed in England would be as important. At any rate these are only suggestions. Any subject on which you cared to write would be most valuable to us."

I was foolish enough to gobble the editorial bait, and to add to the mass of my existing engagements an undertaking to send him an article on the present situation in the Church of England before the end of this month.

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