The Henson Journals

[145]

Wednesday, October 19th, 1927.

Mrs Gow and Olive Pollok–Morris sent gifts in recognition of our "Silver Wedding" tomorrow. it was kind of them to remember a commemoration which must needs carry for us such a tangled tradition of weal & woe.

Streeter has an excellent letter in the Times on the unfortunate & untimely controversy which Bishop Barnes has occasioned; it pleased me so much that I dashed off a short letter to the Editor "endorsing and emphasizing" what he had written. It was a precipitate and probably an unwise performance.

I corrected proofs for the Bishoprick, and returned them to Carter. Then I wrote a long letter to Ella, to go to her tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon I walked round the Park, which in its autumnal colouring was looking radiantly beautiful. The new Chaplain from Barnard Castle School, the Rev. F. L. Sargent, came to see me, and had tea. He did not impress me as remarkable in any way: but he may suit his present employment.

[146]

Of all the books which have appeared on this subject this is the most crushing indictment of everything in the Bolshevik scheme, precisely because it is a scientific critical investigation, and not merely a tirade or a panegyric.

v. Edinburgh Review, Octr 1927: a notice of 'The Mind & Face of Bolshevism'.

This judgement accords exactly with my own. It does for Bolshevik Russian what 'Mother India' does for nationalist India – tears the veil of calculated pretence from its face, and shows the facts in their naked atrocity.

The reports of the Carlisle Diocesan Conference in the morning papers are brief and meagre. The little speech which I made in a slum of West Hartlepool gets a whole column on the front page of the Yorkshire Post. Yesterday's speech which was something of an effort on an occasion of recognized importance is barely noticed. It is very odd. I suppose the reasons which determine the amount of space devoted to religious subjects have little enough to do with religion. Anything personal has a value beyond all proportion for journalists: & an episcopal indiscretion makes excellent "copy". A very brief experience of newspaper reports emancipates a man from the folly of being puffed up by their complimentary character, or cast down by their severity!