The Henson Journals

[149]

2nd Sunday in Lent, February 28th, 1926.

A glorious morning, so glorious that one could not but indulge the delusion, that the winter was gone at last, and the spring already smiling on us. I celebrated the Holy Communion in the chapel at 8 a.m. After breakfast I walked in the garden for half an hour, before settling down to the preparation of a sermon for Eldon. When this was finished, I read the "Observer" in the garden for an hour: & then wrote letters to William and George. In the afternoon Lionel and I walked round the Park. The brilliant weather brought an unusual number of the people to "take the air". Ella went with me to Eldon where I preached for old Greenway at Evensong. The church was fairly filled, and the service was unquestionably congregational, for the singing was a delirium of laughing hyenas, but they meant well. My sermon, which dealt with the subject of the Sunday – Sexual Purity – was listened to with the kind of apprehensive attention which that subject can always secure. I think it probably is necessary to speak about it now & again, but one is never sure whether one is not doing more harm than good. I was, of course, very careful, & not at all "naked and unashamed", as the manner of some is. We returned to the Castle after the service.

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