The Henson Journals

[150]

Friday, October 21st, 1927.

A bright morning and a white frost. I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. We numbered 15 altogether, only old Canon Croudace being absent.

At 10.15 a.m. our conference was resumed, & went on for two hours. After lunch, to my great surprise, the company presented us with a salver, and old Croudace made a graceful speech. I am so unused to receiving either presents of compliments from the clergy that I could hardly respond decently!

In the afternoon I walked around the Park, & then wrote letters. Among them I wrote one to Kenneth at Wadham, enclosing a note authorising Blackwell to supply him with books.

My letter appeared on the front page of the Times under the heading "Religion in Modern Life". Back to the Cardinal needs. An end to petty dispute". It reads less savagely than I feared. The Bishop of Jarrow approved it, and I think it can hardly do harm to anybody except possibly to myself.

Miss Haldane arrived about 6 p.m. We had a good deal of talk. She had read my letter in the Times, and expressed approval. Her interests are mainly philosophical and sociological. Barnes's crude essays in metaphysics would neither interest nor impress her. Besides, she is, like most Scotch women of her generation, reverently religious, & disposed to treat the Kirk with respect. Neither the tone nor the attitude of the Bishop of Birmingham accords with her sense of the fitting. She spoke of Einstein, whom she liked: and of Ludwig, whom she 'could not abide', both foreign Jews, but immensely prominent in the intellectual life of this time.