The Henson Journals

[130]

5th Sunday after Trinity, July 8th, 1928.

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Before getting up I finished another repulsive delineation of American life by Upton Sinclair. It is called 'Sylvia's Marriage', and deals, nakedly & brutally, with the consequences of venereal disease – a topic which appears to fascinate Transatlantic novelists! If we may take this writer's series of novels as conveying even an approximation to the truth about American society, the vilest patch of civilized humanity lies between the Atlantic and the Pacific – the crudest, most violent, & most shamelessly debased. Christianity seems to have declined to a vapourous sentimentalism, & the churches are just the kept mistresses of the Trusts.!

I celebrated 'the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. There were 11 communicants including Aubry Pike, Mr & Mrs Elland, and John. The Collect, Epistle & Gospel were all wonderfully relevant to our present situation, & full of great consolation'. The narrative of S. Peter's penitence & commission is infinitely moving & Comfortable. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord' – who doesn't know the mood of self–convicted worthlessness which those words express? 'Fear not from henceforth thou shall catch men' – who does not long for just such a re–commissioning after failure & despair?

[131] [symbol]

I spent the morning in preparing a sermon for use in the evening. This 'hand to mouth ' preaching is deplorable, and cannot possibly be effective, but as things stand with me, it is unavoidable. Aubry Pike had some more talk with me before going off with Lionel to Sunderland. He is an attractive and ingenuous youth, rather self–centred & self–conscious, but alluringly candid. He labours under a mysterious incapacity to self–examination, which may retain him as an ornament of the laity rather than add him to the shrinking ranks of the clergy. But we will hope for the best.

I motored to Sunderland, and preached in S. Gabriel's to a large congregation. The Sunday School Festival was being observed, so I preached on Christ's treatment of childhood, taking as my text the passage from St Mark X which forms the lesson of the Baptismal Service. The people were very attentive, & the Vicar expressed himself with something beyond the normal ardour of conventional compliment! There were many cars on the road as we returned to Auckland.

What can we do to recover the observance of the Lord's Day? That it is passing quickly is apparent: that when it has passed, organized Christianity will have no avenue of approach to the people left is hardly less apparent. Another ten years of "progress" like the last ten years will give /it the 'coup de grace'.