The Henson Journals

[91]

Tuesday, January 22nd, 1929.

A very cold day, foggy and comfortless. Lady Wrightson and ̭her ^ eldest son, John, an Etonian of 17½, came to lunch. He is a very intelligent lad, and has often been told so! I worked at the Preface which is becoming quite abominable to me, so much so that I am much disposed to hurl all that I have written into the fire.

Mr Gill, the Vicar of Croxdale, came to see me, & poured out a sad story of the fall of his lay assistant who has become a father within two months of his marriage! Now pre–nuptial unchastity is little regarded in the moral judgment of our north–country people, among whom it is distressingly common, & they cannot understand why the Church should make so much bother about it. It often goes along with a high standard of marital fidelity, a circumstance which removes it far from mere promiscuity. But it argues a low level of sexual morality, & cannot rightly be condoned. Of course this particular problem is being quietly removed by the growing practice of using contraceptives, which is a striking example of "Satan casting out Satan"!

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