The Henson Journals

[185]

10th Sunday after Trinity, August 16th, 1925.

The great asset of nascent Christianity was its assurance of individual resurrection to endless felicity or endless woe. This assurance securely based on the historic fact of Christ's Resurrection, and guaranteed to the believer by the Sacraments, broke the despondency of Paganism, & quickened life at every point with a new and joyous optimism. How much of this asset remains in the modern Church? How much of it is ready to my hand today when I go to Willington to speak to the people there, who are dismayed & saddened by the tragedy which has suddenly taken away two of their number? We have, perhaps, lost the old bright certainty, but we have lost also the old terrific fear. Our conception of the Divine Character disallows much that once was axiomatic, & allows an almost limitless hope. If we have lost the former sense of personal security: we have lost also the former horror of personal ruin. Of course the fading away of any clear & confident belief in 'Heaven' and 'Hell' has clothed this life on earth with a new value & importance, and to that extent has added much to the repugnance which Death provokes. The death of the young, perhaps, is far more dismaying & repulsive than formerly. We cannot shake of the sense of intolerable futility, of irrational waste, of a cruel and enigmatic caprice.

[186]

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8a.m. The morning was occupied in the preparation of sermons. At 3 p.m. I left the Castle, & motored to Stockton, where I dedicated the War Memorial of the 5th Batt. D. L.I. in the parish church. General Dudgeon unveiled it, & made an oration. I was distressed to see that most of the ex–servicemen, of whom a large number were present, kept their mouths closed at the singing of the National Anthem. Most of them had an ill, disaffected look, as of men who have been long out of work, and have devoted much of their ample leisure to listening to the speeches of "Bolshies". I preached a sermon, which, perhaps, was as well listened to as might be expected.

At 6.30p.m. I preached at Willington, where a disastrous fire last Friday had caused the death of a working man & his daughter, both of whom were recently confirmed by me. Two things annoyed me in the service. First, the congregation consisted mainly of girls & young women. I could not count more than 35 men in the church. (The parish contains 5358 souls: so at least 1500 persons above 16 of the male sex must be living there): next: the prayers after the 3rd collect were not read, but a series of stilted compositions were read in their place. I rebuked Duncan afterwards for this breach of the law, & he seemed astonished that I should object!

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