The Henson Journals

[118]

Saturday, October 13th, 1928.

My work was interrupted by two telegrams both reporting that Archdeacon Derry had died suddenly this morning. This is indeed a most untoward event both for the diocese & for me. Percy Augustus Derry took his B. A. in Oxford (Trinity College) in 1881, when I myself matriculated. He was ordained by Bishop Lightfoot in 1882. His whole career was in the diocese of Durham except for the years 1894 to 1904, when he was successively Vicar of Rawtenstall in the diocese of Manchester, & Vicar of Norbiton in Surrey. He returned to Durham as Rector & Rural Dean of Gateshead. In 1914 he became Rector of Sedgefield & Archdeacon of Auckland. I appointed him Canon of Durham in 1922, thus bringing both the Archdeacons into the College. In 1924 I sent in his name as second for the Bishoprick of Jarrow, taking care to explain to him privately that I was prevented from making him Suffragan Bishop solely by his bad eyesight & comparative age. He took what was evidently a disappointment very nicely, and has worked very loyally with me & his fellow–Archdeacon.

[119]

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I walked round the Park with Godfrey, while Ella took Dorothea to Richmond. We had much talk, pleasant and intimate. Hardly had we returned to the Castle than Brooke & Fosca Westcott arrived on a short visit. I revised a sermon for use at South Shields, & wrote some necessary letters. Lady Eden & Dr McCullagh came in to dinner, so that our party numbered a dozen. And so the whole evening is frittered away in the futile chatter, always empty, not often sincere, which now passes for conversation. There is, I fear, an inevitable conflict between these silly essays in social life, and the continuing obligations of spiritual office. The conflict emerges almost impudently in those hateful blendings of business & religion known as bazaars, or, more modestly, 'sales of work'. The business is bad, & the religion is fictional. Much is expended in order to gain little, and pious language is employed to cover with respectability the squalid reality of money–making. The effort to unite God & Mammon in a common service is almost acknowledged. The legitimacy of the effort is boldly assumed. Ella is being frequently asked to 'open' these hateful shows, and she evidently enjoys the function, which involves no slight expenditure to say nothing of the deeper mischiefs.

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