The Henson Journals

[87]

16th Sunday after Trinity, September 23rd, 1928.

A most glorious morning, with an autumnal "bite" in the air, & the beeches just beginning to change colour. The swallows are still with us. Last night our departing guests enjoyed the curious spectacle of seeing five swallows, the two parents & their 3 nearly–fledged children, sleeping on & about their nest, built on the precise apex of the chapel doorway, & within four feet of the electric light which illumined the entrance. The birds were quite indifferent both to the noise of departing guests, & to the glare of the lamp.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. We numbered 9 communicants including our guests. The holy place was glorious in the morning sun.

I motored to Whitburn, & preached in the parish church at Mattins, prefacing my sermon with a short eulogy of old Canon Hopkinson. There was a fair, but certainly not a crowded congregation. Miss Hopkinson thanked me for what I had said about her father. After the service I returned to Auckland, picking up the Dean of Hereford & Mrs. Waterfield in Durham on the way. Lady Cecil held forth to me with much earnestness on the peril to the Crown involved in Disestablishment. I was interested by her warmth but unimpressed by her argument.

[88]

I walked with Sir Evelyn Cecil in the Park for an hour during the afternoon. He is vehemently opposed to the very notion of disestablishment, but does not seem quite to have appreciated the situation.

Ella and our guests, except Penelope, went with me to New Shildon, where I read the lessons, & preached the sermon. I took occasion of S. Matthew's Festival to speak about the Apostolic character of the Church, & to emphasize certain inferences therefrom. There was an excellent, & very attentive congregation. The curate, Llewelyn, read the prayers very well. After service I went in to the Vicarage for a few minutes, & found Morris Young distinctly better. We got back to the Castle before 8 p.m.

Evelyn Cecil may be taken to represent the most friendly kind of church layman, & his attitude has for that reason more than merely individual importance. He discloses (1) an insurmountable repugnance to the notion of Disestablishment, (2) a dislike, almost fanatical, to "Anglo–Catholicism", (3) an almost complete inability to perceive the impossibility of enforcing anything against the general sentiment of the clergy, (4) a profound distrust in the Bishops, mainly due to the Bishop of London.

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