The Henson Journals

[16]

3rd Sunday after Easter, April 29th, 1928.

A warm morning & a heavy mist over the land, the birds all singing divinely, & great peace everywhere.

Ella and Lionel went with me to Chester–le–Street where I dedicated an Altar, a Bishop's Throne, Readers and painted panels which had been presented as memorials of divers deceased worthies. I preached and celebrated the Holy Communion. There was a large congregation, and no less than 140 communicants. After service we all went to the Hermitage for lunch. Sir Arthur Wood was very depressing about the future of the coal fields in Durham. We returned to Auckland after lunch.

In the evening I motored to Sunderland and preached in S. Mark's Millfield, where the ''diamond jubilee'' of the parish was commemorated. In the course of my sermon I read out a letter which I had received from old Charles Green the first Vicar. He will be 98 years old this year. I returned to the Castle after the Service, & though there were many cars on the road, arrived in less than an hour. The MSS. of both my sermons were carried off by reporters. I have an ill choice proposed to me by those gentlemen, either to be credited with their astonishing mis–reports of what I have said, or to suffer my MSS. to be soiled & folded!