The Henson Journals

[264]

Thursday, April 29th, 1926.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man:

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man:

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

Wordsworth. 1802.

What is it fitting that I should write in the "Evening Standard" about Inge's Hulsean Lectures? If the Editor had not himself sent me the book with the suggestion that I should take it as the text of an article, I should not have thought it anywise suitable. But as Inge was himself a regular contributor to the E.S. for some time, I suppose there is a certain fitness in noticing anything that comes from his pen. And, perhaps, there is a certain piquancy in bringing the gravest question of religion into the columns of a typically modern popular journal. But one's freedom of utterance by the circumstance is not a little restrained.

[265]

I spent the whole morning in writing the article for the Evening Standard, and finished it. After lunch I walked in the Park accompanied by Vivian Jackson, a lad of 16, whom I picked up in the drive, & found interesting enough. He told me that he was the son of a solicitor at Consett, that he was himself a schoolboy at Scarborough, & hoped to go on to Durham University with a view ultimately of becoming a solicitor. This was his first visit to Bishop Auckland, so I gave him a copy of the Tyndale lecture after showing him the Chapel. He was a very natural & ingenious lad; & looked to be confirmed next year.

Ella and Fearne returned from Scotland about 7 p.m., they brought an evening paper, which had ominous news of the coal–negotiations, which appear to have all but failed. There is some sinister influence at work among the miners which defeats every effort to effect a settlement. It is, of course, just possible that the mining leaders are "bluffing", and intend to surrender at the last moment, but I hardly think this is probable. Another great economic conflict at this moment will throw back the recovery of our trade for an indefinite period, & might well ruin us wholly. There is neither patriotism, nor intelligence, nor "horse sense" among these workmen.

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