The Henson Journals

[57]

Tuesday, July 27th, 1926.

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Today I enter on "the seventh year of our translation", for the legal period counts from the Confirmation in York Minster. These six years have witnessed two tremendous conflicts in the mining field, and the diocese has been "running down" all the time. The failure to secure Ordination candidates has now developed from a menace to a disaster. We are at that pass in Durham that we live from "hand to mouth", & no more construct policies & frame projects. The existing clergy grow older & less efficient: the pastoral care of the parishes is ceasing altogether: the number of Confirmation candidates falls steadily: and a creeping paralysis of despondency is coming on clergy & people. My illness reminds me that I too am passing: and that the measure of my failure must soon be taken in the summarizing which follows the ending of an episcopate. Mine may well be the most barren, ignoble, & ruinous episcopate of the whole series! And yet it is difficult to see how it could in the circumstances have been otherwise. The causes which have brought about so grievous a failure in Durham have been for the most part independent of my personal failings. As I look over the Church of England I see nothing, apart from the foolish activities of the Life & Liberty clique, which corrects the estimate of failure which the aspect of my own diocese so plainly dictates.

[58]

Lady Ross is a zealous Catholick, and absented herself from prayers. She spoke of Lord Halifax with an appropriating approval which, perhaps, is not unjustified, and of Athelstan Riley with a humourous contempt which is certainly merited. As a protagonist of Eastern Churches, he is naturally disliked by Papists: &, apart from all belittling discounts, he is a ludicrous creature.

We motored to Tattershall via Newark and Sleaford, a distance of 40 miles. The castle i.e., the keep of the Castle, is a noble building of red brick, carefully restored & having, perhaps, too much of a "spic–and–span" appearance to be entirely satisfactory. The fine chimney–pieces, which were rescued from the fate of exportation to America, are certainly noteworthy, & the view from the battlements is superb. The parish church had a noble aspect, and invited a visit, but we were short of time, and, after tea, had to return. This we did by way of Lincoln. The view of the Cathedral as we approached the City was itself a sufficient reward for our journey. We endeavoured to reach Carlton without going through Newark, but we had not reckoned with the Trent. Leng returned from the river bank to Newark, & so returned: we crossed by the ferry. En route I bought a copy of the Times, and found in it a vigorously expressed letter from the Bp. of Gloucester criticizing the Bishops for their action in the mining dispute.

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