The Henson Journals

[207]

Thursday, March 27th, 1924.

The demand for super–tax arrived. It was less than I expected, something being "provisionally" deducted. However, I paid the amount (£390) at once. Then I worked at Byron until Mr Noel Gwilliam came to see me about his plans for filling in the interval between his degree and Ordination. He is a frank–looking lad of 20, and seems keen about becoming a clergyman. Later Mr Cass, the curate of Coundon, came to discuss the possibility of his changing his sphere. I advised him to go to Marley Hill. Then I motored to Sunderland, & there confirmed 79 persons in the parish church. There was a considerable congregation of the poorest people in the world, that is, in Sunderland. The candidates were quite obviously of a type socially inferior to the common run of churchfolk: but none the less they were serious & attentive. I was pleased with the service. We returned to Auckland afterwards.

Was it only the crude Calvinism of his nurse, and the irrational Bibliolatry of the Evangelicals, which alienated Byron from Christianity? What impression was made on his mind by the clergymen who were personally known to him, and who were certainly not Evangelicals? Did he take from Harrow a better impression of the Church of England than Cowper took from Westminster? Bishop Sparke was reigning at Ely from 1812 to 1834 (vida. Matheson. English Church Reform. p. 63)

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