The Henson Journals

[34]

Wednesday, March 30th, 1927.

I read last night an odious but powerful novel by the American author Sinclair Lewis – "Elmes Gantry". It is a most repulsive picture of American Christianity, a picture drawn from life.

Londonderry walked with me to the Church House after breakfast. The debate was illuminated by two admirable speeches, the one by Headlam and the other by Lang. Then came the division.

Canterbury For

Bishops 21

Clergy 168

Canterbury Against

Bishops 4

Clergy 23

York For

Bishops 11

Clergy 68

York Against

Bishops none

Clergy 10

It was regrettable that Pearce should have gone over to the opposition. The minority of 4 consisted of the Bishops of Norwich, Exeter, Worcester and Birmingham. The clergy, 236 to 33 – seven to one for the book. Was better than I expected.

[35]

During the afternoon I called on Storr, and talked with him for an hour. Then I went to the club and wrote to Ella.

Londonderry and I dined at Grillions. There was a numerous company:

Mr Asquith (Lord Oxford), Owen Seaman

Sir Austen Chamberlain, Sir George Murray

Lord Eustace Percy, Sir Edmund Gosse

Earl Fitz Alan, General Lyttelton

Lord Stamfordham, Geoffrey Dawson

" Londonderry, Archbishop of Canterbury

" Finlay, " " York

" Haldane

" Byng, Bishop of Durham

Sir John Simon, Sir Macmillan [sic]

I sate between Asquith and Stamfordham, & had a good deal of talk with both.

[Ronald McNeil has an indignant letter in the Evening Standard denouncing me for my article of last night. Stamfordham told me that he had shown the said article to the King, who is getting restive about Prayer Book Revision!]

[36]

Asquith was very friendly and talked freely on many subjects. He said that he had recently spent several Sundays in London, and had been attending various Churches. He had been struck by the badness of the preaching, and the smallness of the congregations. Only in All Saints, Margaret Street, had he seen a crowded church, and heard (from Prebendary MacKay) a good sermon. He spoke of the succession to Canterbury, and said that he was thankful that he himself was not responsible for deciding it. He thought the present Abp. of C. an abler man than the Abp. of Y. but inferior as an orator. This was an obvious judgement. He thought Disestablishment inevitable and probably desirable. I admitted to thinking that the prospect of a Labour Gov. having control of the Crown Patronage affected my own view of that question. We talked of "Jew Süss" and he expressed great admiration of the book. He said that another book dealing with the Napoleonic Era was coming out from the same author. We talked of Bolshevist Russia, & he enlarged on the remarkable efficiency of the propaganda in China & elsewhere which the Bolshevists have organised. He declared his belief that the Russian revolution was in the line of human progress, and professed himself an incorrigible optimist.

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