The Henson Journals

[155]

Wednesday, July 25th, 1928.

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A beautiful but very warm day, and the gardeners busily engaged in watering the flowers. The grass is beginning to show the effect of the continuing heat, though it remains astonishingly green. The" Times" has a prominently placed paragraph on the episcopal appointments consequent on the fresh appointment to Canterbury. It agrees with what Dashwood said to me. I am dismissed politely, as both too old and as probably not desiring to leave Durham. Chelmsford & Manchester are indicated as probably destined for larger responsibility; and the retirement of London to a less onerous see is suggested with almost cruel emphasis. This could hardly mean anything else save a translation of either Gloucester or Hereford to Chelmsford, & the removal of London to the vacated see. But would he go? The one clearly decided matter I judge to be that my name is no more considered. I don't really mind, though it is rather discouraging to find one's self put out of the reckoning as 'too old'. It is a salutary, if unwelcome reminder that the sand in the hour–glass is running out, & that, in truth, one has but a short time, at most, perhaps, ten years, before the Night.

[156] [symbol]

Ella took our Swedish guests, Dr John Cullberg & his wife, into Durham, while Lionel would motor me to Annfield Plain. But we had hardly started before trouble began, and we drew up at a public house in the hope of hiring a car. Fortunately a young doctor was there with his car, & he volunteered to take us on. So we arrived just in time. The foundation stone laying ceremony was performed by Mr Cooper, there was a preliminary service in the iron church, at which I preached. After the service Mr Cooper motored us to Durham, where we recovered touch with our own car.

While we had tea with Canon Dawson–Walker, Leng motored back to Auckland with Ella & the Swedes. He returned to Durham in time to take us on to Sunderland, where I admitted the Rev. E.M. Williams to S. Thomas's Vicarage. There was a considerable congregation, a fair muster of the local clergy, and an impressive service, after which we returned to Auckland, recovering Lionel's car on the way.

Justice Roche writes to say that he is disposed to think that we may at last have caught the imagination of a considerable public, by our Mansion House teaching: but the contributions which have come in today amounted to no more than £616:0, and one cannot build any considerable expectations on that.