The Henson Journals

[136]

Friday, 13th, July 1928.

I spent the day, (i.e. much of it,) in preparing my Sunday work, & writing letters.

In the afternoon I had an interview with an Ordination candidate named Lamb, who is a student of S. Chad's. I was not ill–pleased with him. He seems to be reacting against the de–spiritualised ceremonialism which marks some of the students in that seminary of advanced "Anglo–Catholicism", & he expressed a burning horror of the cunning sophistries by which pledges were emptied of meaning, & even Ordination Vows made of none effect. I accepted him for Ordination at Advent on a tithe from S. Jude's, South Shields. Lionel & I motored to Norton, where I consecrated an addition to the churchyard, & gave an address to the considerable gathering of parishioners which witnessed the ceremony. Then I inspected the old church. Norton runs back to the 10th. century. It was a collegiate church.

We dined luxuriously with an amiable octogenarian sybarite, Keith. After dinner, he gave me a list of names of persons whom he knows to be wealthy, & who, he thinks, might respond to a direct appeal from me for the Castle. But I don't share his optimism, for these North–country magnates are as close–fisted as they are wealthy. We were back in the Castle in Auckland soon after 10 p.m.