The Henson Journals

[322]

Thursday, June 3rd, 1926.

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[A tolerable, but by no means satisfactory night! Another calm bright summer morning. I think much of the diocese, how best its extreme & apparent difficulties can be met, & its too evident decline be in some measure arrested. But along every line of possible effort this problem of the inadequacy of the clergy meets and defeats me. There is a factor which I cannot control. And it is a decisive factor, for it means, unless a solution can be found of the problem it presents, a deterioration which is continuing & progressive. Not only is there no adequate inflow of young clergymen to provide for the normal wastage in number, & the ever–increasing seniority of the diocesan clergy, but there is the gradual disappearance of those incumbents, to whom young clergymen could be rightly sent on titles. The latter consequence is becoming painfully apparent in my diocese. I find it increasingly difficult to "place" men in parishes where I can have any reasonable assurance that they will be properly taught the work of the ministry. Stephenson at Gateshead, Wynne Willson and Bailey at Sunderland. Sykes at Sedgefield, Knowlden at West Hartlepool, Parry–Evans at Bishop Auckland, Shaddick at New Shildon, Cosgrave at Darlington, Garland at Tynedock – are there any others?]

[323] [symbol]

A correspondent in a recent issue of the "Yorkshire Post", who seemed to possess a considerable acquaintance with the county, said (as if it were a conclusion which hardly admitted of dispute,) that within the next 25 or 30 years, the closing of unremunerative & exhausted mines would reduce the population of Durham by half. If this forecast be even approximately true, the effect on the diocese must needs be very great; and we cannot reasonably leave the contingency out of our reckoning when we have to determine our present policies. Retrenchment, not extension, must be the dominating consideration.This insane and calamitous strike of the miners must have far–reaching effects on the county, which so largely bases its prosperity on the mining industry. Will the other industries maintain their ground if this basal industry, which was the cause of their coming into existence, fails so completely? What will be the effect on the revenues of the Ecclesiastical Commission of the loss of the income they draw from the mines of Durham? The Church may be disendowed by the course of economic development even if (which is unlikely enough) it escape [sic] the violence of political action. In a situation so unstable, when the only probable factor in the outlook is a far–reaching change of economic status, how futile and irrational are all the big "reforms" on which our zealots excite themselves!

[324] [symbol]

The "Newcastle Journal" prints another leading article on "The Church and Politics", which takes for its "text" a letter on the subject by Canon Hunter, printed in the same issue. The letter was vigourous, well–expressed, & effective. It could have been effectively answered, for it assumed all the fallacies of "Copec". There was in it a reference to the Archbishop's unfortunate Essay in Reconciliation during the General Strike, and this reference moved me to the folly of myself writing a short letter to the paper showing why the Archbishop's action was, in the eyes of many, probably most, Churchmen, so regrettable. This fatuous epistle I caused to be sent at once to the Editor's office, &, having thus "burned my boats", was for the second time today walked by the Matron & one of the nurses to the other side of the House & back.

[Charlie Lillingston came to see me. He is a nice lad, rather nervy, but probably that will remedy itself as he grows older. He is now immersed in Gibbon's Decline & Fall, & properly enthusiastic. But his secret ambition is to enter Parliament, & electrify the House of Commons by his eloquence! Actually he will be a schoolmaster, & at present he is only 19.]

I finished the Last Chronicle of Barset, thus completing the series of Barsetshire novels. They make good reading for the bedridden!

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