The Henson Journals
Wed 29 December 1926
Volume 41, Page 302
[302]
Wednesday, December 29th, 1926.
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A beautiful sunny day, and for the time of year very mild, all the more welcome since both from America and from the continent very severe weather is reported.
I worked all day at the Article for the Bishoprick, and succeeded in writing about 20 pages, but it is very poor stuff.
I have been reading Lunn's book. It is poor gossiping stuff, rarely lightened by any flashes of insight. He was evidently in his element in America. The superlatives of compliment delighted him, and he revelled in the incessant speech–making. His craze for conferences & Church unity found ample opportunity for indulgence in a thoroughly sympathetic environment. For America is never happier than when reforming the universe on paper and platform. Huge meetings surcharged with enthusiasm and fed fat with rhetoric are the American substitute for rectitude, self–sacrifice, & chivalry. Lunn was at some pains to enquire into the working of Prohibition, with which he was theoretically in agreement: and his collection of testimonies pro and con has a positive value. The balance certainly inclines decisively against Prohibition, though the majority of the Protestant clergy, with "big–business" and "boot–legging" support it.