The Henson Journals

[80]

Saturday, June 21st, 1924.

I wrote a short "Presidential Address" for the Diocesan Conference, making some personal references to the dead & resigned clergy, cracking up my new suffragan, & calling attention to the Report of the Ecclesl Property Commission. Then I came away in the motor to go to Glasgow for the Sunday School Convention. Clayton went with me as far as Durham, where he was charged with looking after the Lay Workers' Festival, & I went on to Newcastle. The station was horribly crowded on account of the local races. However one of the railway officials recognised me, & showed much deferential kindness. He refused a tip, & I felt humbled at having proffered it. The train arrived in Glasgow 3/4 hour after the scheduled time, with the result that I arrived at mine host's house woefully late for dinner. He had got together a company to meet me. There was Sir Robert Bruce, the Editor of the Glasgow Herald, who reminded me of our former meeting at Fairlie: a certain Colonel Reid, who hailed from Ireland: an American Professor, who reminded me of the Yale Lectures on Preaching, which I gave in Newhaven in 1909, & which he had heard: a facetious & talkative minister, who, I gather, is in charge of the Cathedral here: & several others. We talked with animation & good humour, but nothing of the conversation held a place in my mind, and the record is empty! Why is it that the most interesting dinners are in the retrospect often the most barren? Are dinners, like nations, happiest when they have no annals? Shortly after 11 p.m. I went off to bed.