The Henson Journals

[57]

Wednesday, April 20th, 1927.

I employed the morning in writing an article for the Evening Standard on African elephants. The subject was suggested by the account of the Belgian experiment in training the beasts, which appeared in the Times. Rainbow and Gerald came to lunch: and, after they had gone, I walked in the Park, & then wrote many letters.

My comments on Cardinal Bourne appeared in the Yorkshire Post, Manchester Guardian, Northern Echo and (slightly abbreviated) in the Times. They read fairly well, but may bring me into a worrying morass of tiresome & futile controversy for which my temperament, habits, and situation disqualify me. The Roman Catholics are very ''low down'' in their ordinary procedure. Rainbow says that in his parish (Shotton) they issue 'football coupons' to their communicants, thus directly encouraging the gambling spirit, which is perilously strong in the mining community. They wield an immense authority over the Irish who from almost the whole of their following: and this circumstance gives them an importance which their merits, whether as individuals or as Christian Ministers, they certainly do not merit. They are certainly becoming far more aggressive and insolent than heretofore. Partly, perhaps, they desire to make quite impossible for the future any such negociations with Anglicans as were favoured by the late Cardinal Mercier: partly, they think that there is a good chance of the Church of England breaking up over Prayer Book Revision.

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