The Henson Journals

[145]

Monday, August 11th, 1924.

Jack Boden went off in the course of the morning. I read through the 'Copec' Report on 'Politics & Citizenship'. It is distinctly saner than the other reports.

Jimmie Dobbie turned up for lunch: & played bowls with me afterwards. At 4 p.m. Mr Francis, the Vicar of Middleton St George, brought a young man, named Harold Bainbridge Goundry, to be confirmed in the Chapel. He was accompanied by his mother, brother & sweet–heart. He is going to St Michael's College, Tenbury, as an assistant master. After tea I gave them all tea, & then settled to writing letters until post–time. Ernest arrived before dinner fresh from a walking tour of the English Lakes, and looking very fit and bronzed.

The four years which I must review in my Charge have been marked in exceptional measure by economic disturbance & international unrest. It is natural that the minds of religious men should have been exercised by the apparent helplessness of the Churches to arrest attention & influence the course of affairs. There is a widely–extended disposition to ascribe the comparative failure of organized religion to its remoteness from the interests which dominate the minds of the people. The demand is made, & pressed ever more insistently that the direction & emphasis of Christian teaching should be transferred from the personal to the social implications of Christ's Religion; that the redemption of society should be dwelt upon rather than the salvation of the individual: that the 'Kingdom of God' should be set up visibly & by direct action in the economic & political spheres.

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