The Henson Journals

[79]

Friday, June 20th, 1924.

I succeeded in constructing a sermon for the 1250th anniversary of Benedict Biscop's foundation by drawing largely on that which I prepared for the 1000th anniversary of the church at Penrith.

Then I motored to Houghton–le–Spring, and had some talk with Knight about the case of the woeful John. He, as I expected, was pitiless, and, indeed, rightly, for I can see no other way. I was much struck by the beauty of the Rectory and its garden. It is ideal for an episcopal house of the smaller type. In some ways it might have been wise to tie the suffragan bishoprick to that Rectory.

I went on to South Shields, and "admitted" the new Vicar of S. Mark's, Hurrell. A number of the local clergy assembled, & a fair congregation. This church, in Bishop Westcott's time, was in the charge of a grossly immoral parson, against whom the Bishop had to take legal action. The wretch appealed, and appealed again. Before he had been got rid of, he had carried his diocesan into six courts by successive appeals, and cost him £650. The shadow of the scandal has lain darkly on St Mark's ever since, and is said not to be even yet lifted. "The evil that men do lives after them" is a saying never more true than in the case of the clergy. Old Pater of Sunderland thanked me for my discourse, which, he said, had helped him. After service we motored back to Auckland, depositing Wilson on his doorstep as we traversed Durham.

---