The Henson Journals

[184]

Monday, September 27th, 1926.

I received an invitation to the Formal Opening of a Mosque in London! Times have indeed changed. What would that doughty crusader, my predecessor, Bishop Hugh de Pudsey have said if he had been invited to such a function by an accredited representative of the False Prophet? It would seem that the Unbelievers are beginning to turn the tables on the Christian Missionaries!

I worked (but vainly) on the Lock lecture before lunch, and afterwards walked in the Park, where I picked up an ingenuous youth, William Hudson, aged 20, a shop–assistant in the town, and shewed him "Butler's Walk", telling him something about that great man, of whom he said that he had never heard!

Shaddick came in to Evensong, and stayed to dinner. The two Ordination candidates – Holme and Llewelyn – arrived in good time, and were looked after by Lionel and Shaddick.

Tony Chute arrived for dinner. He looks well, and seems to like his work at Magdalen. He says that there is [a] strong current of rather extreme "Socialism" in the University: that it has its strength in the new school of "Modern Greats": & that it is creating a revolutionary intelligentsia similar to that which worked such mischief in Russia. He says that there is no tendency among the undergraduates to see [sic] Holy Orders, & that he anticipates no change. A certain slackness of fibre, and absence of enthusiasm are noticeable among the undergraduates, and these are not comfortable phenomena. On the other hand, there is little drunkenness or vice. He has but little opportunity of getting into spiritual relations with the youth.

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