The Henson Journals

[29]

Thursday, May 10th, 1928.

Briggs, the Vicar of Hunwick, came to tell me that the health of his wife & youngest child suffered so much from the harshness of the climate & the dampness of the Vicarage house, that he must have a change of benefice!! Another winter would be fatal! The clergy & their wives appear to be strangely delicate creatures.

Meade Faulkner came to see me in the afternoon, & talked for an hour. He is certainly very ill, & he told me that he was 70 years old. Our conversation took an unusually intimate tone, & I asked him why, though a most regular attendant at the Cathedral services, he never received the Holy Communion. He replied with a confession of a vague, almost pantheistic sacramentalism. He disclaimed any disposition to join the Roman Catholic Church, with which he acknowledges much sympathy. But the Pope is more than he can stand. I was impressed by the seriousness with which he spoke of himself and of his religious convictions, if indeed that word may be used of such nebulous opinions as he professed.

Lionel & I motored to Sherburn where I confirmed 73 persons. The weather was cold & stormy: our car was open, & rain had started to fall before we regained the Castle after service.