The Henson Journals

[219]

Easter Day, April 4th, 1926.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. There were 21 communicants including the following:– Ashton, Lang, Harry, George Laws, Alexander, & James. I used the Cosin plate.

The doctor came to see me about 10 a.m., & stayed chatting for half–an–hour. Except to maintain the fiction of my being ill, there was no reason for his calling. In the course of his conversation, he mentioned that Hodgson's brother is the care–taker of an institute in the town. This circumstance adds to my astonishment that my predecessor shd have been so foolish as to appoint him to Escombe. He ought to have had sufficient knowledge of the world, & of human nature, to know that, in the case of a man of the labouring class who has been pushed forward into Holy Orders, the one chance of his acquiring some proper consciousness of the clerical office, & some decent gravity of deportment, is his removal from the too–familiar environment in which he has been reared. I doubt if anything could have made H. a reverently mannered clergyman. In constant contact with his family, & allied to the Labour Party, the possibility is remote indeed. Ordination and the administration of patronage are the tests of episcopal capacity, & this diocese has suffered from bad failure in both.

[220] [symbol]

I read much ofPastor's History in the course of the day. The record of that ghastly old bigot, Paul iv sets one thinking. He was the complete embodiment of the Counter–Reformation, and, as one reads of his remorseless severities and utter contempt of justice & mercy, the question rises in the mind inevitably whether, indeed, the Counter–Reformation – in spite of the Jesuit saints – was "of God." Which Pontiff did the greater violence to the character of a Christian Pastor – Leo X, or Paul IV, the easy–going, self–indulgent dilettantist, or the gloomy, ferocious bigot? Pastor evidently regards the savage old Pontiff with dislike. He is a modern apologist for the Papacy, and the savageries of Paul iv are particularly difficult to present in a tolerable guise. Yet he admires the Jesuits, and never wearies of exalting the Counter–Reformation.

The weather continues to be brilliant & very warm. Large numbers of people were in the Park during the day. They are all well–dressed, and almost all well–mannered. Many of the young men are unemployed, & have been unemployed for a long time past. Will they ever be regularly employed again in this county?

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