The Henson Journals

[62]

Wednesday, September 12th, 1928.

["]On becoming Bishop of Chester, Dr. Blomfield astonished the dioceses by refusing to licence a curate until he had promised to abstain from hunting, and by the pain and surprise with which he saw one of his clergy carried away drunk from a visitation dinner. One Rector, whom he rebuked for drunkenness, replied with an injured manner that he never drank on duty.["]

v. Hammond "The Village Labourer" p. 219.

I motored to Durham, & licensed 3 curates. Then, after lunching with the Bishop of Jarrow, I went to S. Oswald's & officiated at the wedding of George Nimmins. Then I walked to the Diocesan Registry, & arranged with Lazenby some matters connected with the forthcoming Visitation of the Diocese. After this I returned to Auckland Castle, & walked with Lionel in the Park.

I wrote to the Rev. H. K. Luce thanking him for "The Creed of a School boy". It is a typical product of the sentimental–socialist version of Christty which has its Vatican in S. Martin's & its Nicea [63] [symbol] at Copec. Dick Shepherd is its prophet: & Temple has hitherto been its Pope. But Bishopthorpe is less friendly to altruistic fervour divorced from economics & opportunism even than Bishopscourt, & in the future the pontificate may be less satisfying to the zealots than it has been in the past. All this sentimentalism facilitates the advance of the disruptive forces. It bears to the Revolution which is coming much the same relation as Rousseau's writings bore to 1789.

Gore sent me a pleasant letter in acknowledging my "Reflections on the Crisis":–

"I am very anxious that the High Church people, such as I am more or less in agreement with, shld make a public confession of the sins of their own party, which (as you say) are great. I think they owe that to the Church, & I am finding that the extreme people are inclined (some of them) to recognize how much mischief they have done, including the Editor of the Church Times! I think a confession of this sort made to the Bishops in writing & expressing a wide agreement among those who would be called Anglo–Catholics might make it easier for the Bishops to do the right thing."

[64]

We are told that one day Augustine had prepared an eloquent discourse, designed to produce a strong impression upon cultivated minds. Suddenly, in the midst of his preaching, he broke the thread of his argument, abandoned the period which he had begun, & discussed at once a more simple & more popular subject. On his return home, he told a friend that he had yielded to an irresistible impulse of the Holt Spirit, which had urged him to set aside his original plan. Hardly had he said this when a man , knocking at the door, entered, bathed with tears, & confessed himself won over to the cause of Christ. He had been struck by that very portion of the discourse which had been suggested to Augustine by the sudden inspiration.

v. Dict: of Chr: Biog: 'Augustinus'.

S. Augustine was born at Tagaste on Nov. 13. A.D. 354: he died at Hippo on August 28th A.D. 430. His Confessions were written in 397: and his Retractions in 428. The De Civitate Dei begun in 413 was finished in 426.

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