The Henson Journals

[251]

Friday, September 25th, 1925.

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I left Oxford at 10.50 a.m. and travelled without change to Darlington, where I arrived about 4.30 p.m. Clayton & Leng met me with the car, & carried me to the Castle. There, among the letters awaiting my arrival, was a truly grievous communication from the Bishop of Jarrow, conveying the materials of another melancholy & scandalous disciplinary case. "We have the treasure in earthen vessels". The past is brought home with terrible emphasis by the moral collapse of a clergyman who has for years carried on an apparently faithful ministry. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall". The Park–keeper reports his capture of two men stealing coal from the park. In the actual circumstances, I could almost lament his zeal, for there can be no question of prosecuting such depredators at present. They must be threatened, and allowed to go unpunished – a fable but necessary procedure. That quaint creature, Canon Bothamley, sent me £5. to the Escombe Repairs Fund. Several letters of protest, rather abusively expressed, came to me in consequence of my article in the "Evening Standard" on "The Lure of Moscow". The "Times" has a report of a speech by the Abbe Portal made in Brussels at a Congress on Church Union. He said that, at Malines, "agreement was, in fact, reached on the principles of the Council of Trent".

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