The Henson Journals

[161]

Monday, September 13th, 1926.

Lady Limerick and Lady Struthers went away after breakfast: they leave a considerable vacancy, for the one is the most charming, & the last the most silly of garrulous women! A rather lamentable letter from Gerald tells me that he has gone off to Leatherhead without my sending for him. I wrote him a consolatory letter, & sent him a tip of 10/–. Then I wrote to Miss Haldane, asking for information about the great Carnegie Trust, which is said to have ruined the Scottish Universities by enriching them!

Fawkes writes to tell me that he believes that I am "Jix's" candidate for Lambeth, and that superlatively silly woman Lady S. is good enough to assure me that my access to the chair of St Augustine is imminent!!!! It is geese like these who make men ludicrous. If one thing might be fairly thought more certain than another it is that I am impossible for Lambeth. It would only require my name to be seriously considered for it to be at once & decisively "turned down". For surely, on any showing, the Head of the system must be so far accordant with it as to work it without humiliation & friction. How could I do either with the present sytem of the C. of E.? It would be the extreme of humiliation, & the maximum of friction. If anything like unanimity were accessible on the Episcopal Bench, it would be apparent on the point of my impossibility for Lambeth. Nevertheless these brainless noodles will play with my name, & when in due course events falsify their prophecies, they will describe me as consumed with chagrin & disappointment!! The order of probability is 1. Lang. 2. Strong. 3. Winchester. 4. Headlam. 5. Donaldson. 6. Temple. If, of course, Baldwin's Government went out, & the nomination to the Primacy fell to a Labour administration, the Socialists on the Bench would have a chance. But in neither case would Dunelm: come into the running.

After lunch I walked with Mary round the Park.

Harold Cox writes to acknowledge the ms. of the Edinburgh Article, with which he professes himself pleased. "Your frank attack on the sentimentalists is very refreshing." A writer in the Spectator suggests a comparison between the advocates of the Truce of God in the 11th century and the Bishops who intervened in the coal stoppage. It is rather a thought–provoking suggestion.

[162]

[']The end of the tenth century witnessed many attempts to put an end to private wars in France. In consequence of terrible epidemics & bad harvests, which were regarded as signs of divine wrath & incitements to repentance, the magnates of central & northern France met, agreed to renounce private war, & confirmed this resolve by solemn oaths. Gerard, Bishop of Cambrai, objected to this as political: he was much abused by other members of the congress for holding aloof, & yet, as the chronicler remarks, events proved that he was right. "vix enim paucissimi crimen perjurii evaserant."[']

c. Cambridge Medieval History. vol. iii: p. 465

see also p. 281 ff.

Cameron Lees, when he visited Palestine in 1870, met General Robertson, the brother of the famous Brighton preacher: –

"He was greatly pleased to hear of the admiration in which his brother's writings are held in Scotland. He says that Stopford Brooke's biography does not give a true idea of his brother's character, for he was a man full of fun and humour, & many letters showing this were put into his hands but never used by him." (v. Life. p. 176)

This is interesting. It contradicts the impression which I had formed of the great Preacher, whose lack of humour seemed the natural explanation of much in his life: – his extreme & feverish earnestness, his vast capacity of self–torture, and the severity of some of his judgments. Of course, when the quality called "a sense of humour" is in question, one must make allowance for the great unwillingness to admit its absence, which distinguishes humourless folk.

When Cameron Lees visited Jacob's Well, one of his party made an observation which deserves recollection: –

"Here," said one of my friends, "were laid the foundations of the Broad Church. The remark is true in the highest sense. For what broader & more Catholic Church cd be found than that described in the words: 'The hour cometh … when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit & in truth.'" (Ibid. p. 163)

---