The Henson Journals

[51]

Whit Tuesday, May 29th, 1928.

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The glorious weather continues, but the air is sultry, & the heat last night made sleep impossible. I finished the 'Charge' for the Ordination candidates. Mr Ledgard came to lunch. I suggested that he should accept Burnopfield when it is vacated by old Madrill's resignation in September.

The Glasgow Herald (May 26th, 1928.) publishes the letter which the Prime Minister wrote to Lord Oxford, when the latter retired from politics in October 1926. It contains a notable description of the Prime Minister's office:–

"I don't think that anyone who has not been a Prime Minister can realise the essential & ultimate loneliness of that position: there is no veil between him and the human heart (or rather no veil through which he cannot see), and in his less happy moments he may feel himself to be the repository of the sins & follies of the whole world."

I have often heard bishops lament the loneliness which invests them, and my own experience confirms the truth of their complaint. Their position, (like that, in his vastly greater sphere, of the Prime Minister,) being supreme, no–one approaches them without lying open to the, often unmerited but always plausible, suspicion of wanting something!