The Henson Journals

[301]

Tuesday, December 28th, 1926.

George Nimmins sends me a large photograph of the Company's staff, all natives save himself & one other Englishman in the centre. Also he sends an illustrated Dutch paper with an account of the Communist rising. I spent the morning in going through my Journal for the year, and noting what might be useful in the composition of my sermon.

In the afternoon I walked to Escombe with Brooke and Lionel, and visited the little "Saxon" church. The work of repair seems to have been completed, and the aspect of the building is less discreditable. It is something to have got this piece of work carried through successfully.

Ellwood of S. Chad's, Gateshead, has arranged to have a miracle–play performed in his church without first securing my permission. My attention to the matter was directed by a letter from a correspondent, who had seen the notice of the entertainment posted outside the Cathedral in Newcastle. He writes to me at some length, vaguely claiming a right to take his own course in the matter. I reminded him that the 88th Canon of 1604 requires the Churchwardens to "suffer no plays to be kept in the Church": that this Canon had been generally enforced: and that where (as in S. John's, Sunderland) permission had been given for the performance of a miracle–play in the Church, there were special circumstances which could not be pleaded in the case of St Chad's.

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