The Henson Journals

[184]

Tuesday, July 12th, 1927.

I spent the morning in writing letters and then in reading again Coulton's chapters on the Cistercian Order in his "Five Centuries of Religion". I also read Hamilton Thompson's chapter on the Monastic Orders in Cambridge Medieval History vol V. The one writer's sympathies are strongly Protestant: the other's are strongly Catholick: but both are genuine scholars and write honestly. On the whole I think Coulton's is the truest account of Medieval Monasticism.

Jackson, the Rector of Long newton, lunched here. He came to ask permission to resign his benefice, a permission which his face, horribly distorted by some dreadful operation, significantly justified. But he wants a pension, which will reduce the income of his successor to a woeful pittance.

Lionel gave another lesson in golf: but my performance is humiliating in its badness. There can be no doubt that the spectacle of a man of 64 essaying to learn a game which should be mastered in youth is ludicrous from one point of view, and pathetick from another!

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