The Henson Journals

[96]

Friday, January 29th, 1926.

And if pride, covetousness, and lechery be the world, as St John saith, then turn your eyes unto the spiritualty, unto the Roman bishop, cardinals, bishops, abbots, and all other prelates, and see whether such dignities be not the world, and whether the way to them be not also the world! To get the old abbot's treasure, I think it be the readiest way to be the new. How few come by promotion, except they buy it, or serve long for it, or both! To be skilled in war and in polling, to maintain war & lusts, & to be a good ambassador, is the only way to a bishoprick, or to pay truly for it. See whether pluralities, unions, totquots [sic], and changing the less benefice and bishoprick for the greater (for the contrary change I trow [sic] was never seen) may be without covetousness & pride. And then, if such things be the world, and the world not of God, how is our spiritualty of God?

Tyndall. Exposition of the 1st Epistle of St John p.177. A.D. 1531

[97]

I worked all the morning at the Tyndall lecture. After lunch I motored to Durham, & presided at a meeting of the Lay Workers' Association. Then I returned to Auckland. Miss Coleman came to say. Goodbye. She leaves Durham to take up work in the diocese of Chichester. I gave her a book and my photograph. Then I resumed work on the lecture, but not to much effect.

Tyndall's style is the true reflection of himself. – clear, strong, humourous, sometimes biting & bitter but never sentimental, or verbose, or artificial. It is redolent of the English soil from which he sprang. His love of the common people exhales from his pages, and his manly scorn for whatever is unreal, or ostentatious, or merely conventional, adds a cutting edge to his phrases; He is fond of quoting popular proverbs, and often points his moral by references to familiar experiences. Thus his writing has the freedom, directness, and vivacity of conversation. His understanding of English folk is born of personal knowledge, & inspired by a genuine sympathy. He is a priest and a scholar, but his manner of thinking and mode of speech are rather lay than clerical.

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