The Henson Journals

[176]

Wednesday, November 2nd, 1927.

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Another day has slipped and still no effective start has been made on that detestable Edinburgh speech. I read through Raleigh's Lecture on RLS, which is of course, crammed with good things, & I dipped into 'Virginibus Puerisque', and then I went to the dentist. After lunch Ella and I motored to Wolviston, where I baptized Ernest Alfred Webster in the parish church. We had tea with the babe's grandmother, & then returned to the Castle.

Lionel, Parry–Evans, and I motored to Hamsterley, where I instituted or rather collated a poor shrinking creature named McGowan to the Vicarage of that parish. The church was filled, and atmosphere (since there appeared to be no method of ventilating the Church) was deadly. No words can describe the badness of the organ and the incompetence of the choir. Archdeacon Derry inducted the new Vicar, and Cecil Ferens administered the oaths.

The consequences of Barnes's folly begin to appear, e.g. there is a letter in the Times from the warden of Keble calling for a change in the method of appointing bishops, and the Federation of Catholic priests has informed the Ecclesiastical Committee of its determination to reserve the Sacrament in the parish churches whether the Bishops approve or not! The prospect of a restoration of discipline grow definitely darker.