The Henson Journals

[71]

9th Sunday after Trinity, August 1st, 1926.

We attended the morning service in the Cathedral, and heard an excellent sermon from the Dean on the great text: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, yea and for ever". I celebrated the Holy Communion after the morning prayer, but I abstained from taking part in the ministering of the Sacrament.

There was a pleasant party at lunch, and afterwards we sate in the garden, and talked. I was much interested in a young man, named Llewelyn Griffiths, who is a tinplate–manufacturer, and is here in camp with the Territorials. We had much conversation, & parted with the desire, &, perhaps, the purpose of renewing acquaintance. For tea we went to the Palace. The Bishop took us round the garden, shewed us the Lodge which has been cleaned & renovated since the retirement of old Bateman, and took us into the Cathedral. We attended Evensong in the Cathedral, and heard a sermon from the Bishop, whom I was the more curious to hear in that I had never yet heard him. He preached extemporaneously for about half an hour, & his discourse was marred by the faults which are inseparable from extemporaneous speech viz. verbosity, looseness of construction, repetition, and occasional use of slang. But I objected to the substance even more than to the method of the discourse, for it led up to an enthusiastick exaltation of the Enabling Act, and its consequences! Probably it was a good specimen of the type of sermon which it represented, and which matches the minds as it reflects the prejudices of the church–going public. The Bishop has a good voice, an energetic manner, & a fine presence.

[72]

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Minor–Canon Glennie & Mrs Glennie with their son Ian came in to supper. The boy is now at Oxford, where, as his mother told me, he enjoys an allowance of £300 per annum. His father's income from the minor canonry is now £500, the number of minor canons in this cathedral having been reduced from four to two. Mrs Glennie said that they hoped that their son would take Orders, but the youth himself told me that his ambition was to become a singer. I inquired what, in that case, he proposed to do with his brains, assuming that he had any. To this question he was unable to return a satisfactory answer. After supper we sate in the garden, and told stories. The Dean related one which is worth recording. Sir Richard Owen, the eminent man of science, told his (the Dean's) mother, that he secured for purposes of scientific examination the head of a negro who had been executed for murder. Wrapping the grisly object in a black cloth, he essayed to carry it to the railway station, but slipping on the way, the head got loose from its wrapping, & rolled into a cottage on the side of the road. With great presence of mind, Sir Richard wrapped his own head in the black cloth, and ran into the cottage crying Give me my head, which he thus recovered from the dismayed woman at the cottage. Years after the woman on her death–bed related to her parish clergyman the apparition of the devil in the form of a headless man, clamouring for his black head!

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