The Henson Journals

[259]

Wednesday, November 24th, 1926.

A beautiful day, sunny & mild but growing colder towards its end in a glorious sunsetting. I read all the morning, & walked with Ernest in the Park in the afternoon.

Old Bishop Knox sends me a kind letter in which he praises warmly my speech on the Sunday question. "A very competent judge in the audience spoke of it as far away the best & most eloquent speech he had heard in the Church Assembly during the whole course of its existence. You seem to have excelled your own brilliant self, taking the difficult side in this very difficult question. We are your debtors, & it is only right to acknowledge our indebtedness." This flatterous introduction introduces a more sinister reference to the Bishops generally, & Prayer Book Revision in particular. I suspect the old Fanatick means mischief.

I attended a meeting of the parishioners in the Town Hall, gathered in connexion with their annual Festival, and made a speech in which I took occasion to speak about the Strike, which has made this year dolefully eminent, and the smallpox outbreak which has made this country shamefully prominent. I was surprised to hear that no less than £220 had been collected by the sale of work etc. which form part of the arrangements of the annual Festival.

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