The Henson Journals

[128]

Tuesday, January 15th, 1924.

Scotland was the only kingdom in which the Reformation triumphed over the resistance of the State; & Ireland was the only instance where it failed, in spite of Government support. But in almost every other case, both the princes that spread their canvas to the gale and those that faced it, employed the zeal, the alarm, the passions it aroused as instruments for the increase of power.

Lord Acton. "Hist. of Freedom" p. 43

The weather became quite mild, the wind fell, & the rain ceased.

I started on a sermon for Stockton on "The Message of the Church to the Age". This was chosen & phrased by the committee of fraternizing Anglicans and Sectaries to whom I promised to preach on the 24th.

In the afternoon I walked with Ernest & the dogs in the Park. White–Thomson, the Archdeacon of Canterbury, has been appointed to the Bishoprick of Ely, which will not be vacant until next month. Thus the "Labour" Prime Minister will not have to show his quality as a Bishop–maker just yet. The Archbishop has secured himself a safe supporter by this appointment. White–Thomson is popular with the clergy, well–born and well–educated, in no sense a scholar, but rather above the academic average of bishops.

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