The Henson Journals

[310]

Monday, January 3rd, 1927.

Lionel went off for a week's holiday by the early train. The "Yorkshire Post", "Manchester Guardian", and "Northern Echo" have all reports of my Cathedral sermon, which read rather savagely. However they do direct attention to the 2 really urgent domestic issues, viz: – Reform of Trade Union Law, and Emigration of the Permanently Unemployed.

I paid in to the Bank the cheque on account of the Diocesan Chaplain's services (£28.5.0), and drew out £25.

I wrote to Lord Durham suggesting that he shd convene a meeting about the Emigration of the Unemployed in early February.

In the afternoon I walked in the Park with Ernest, and on returning to the Castle, read with the view of writing a review of the book on Bishop Gibson for the Bishoprick.

Lecky has an interesting passage about the Test Act, which he credits with being a potent cause of the profaneness and formalism of the 18th century[:] "the chief barrier against religious formalism in England was removed when the most sacred rite of the Christian religion was degraded into 'an office key, the pick–lock to a place', when the libertine, the place–hunter and the worldling were invited to partake in it for purposes wholly unconnected with religion". He justly animadverts the strange zeal of the clergy in defending this abominable depravation of the Sacrament. It is, he thinks, "one of the most singular illustrations on record of the extent to which, in ecclesiastical bodies, the corporate interest of the Church may sometimes, even with good men, override the interests of religion" (v. Hist: of England in the XVIIIth Century." Vol. I. p. 316.)

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