The Henson Journals

[63]

4th Sunday after Easter, April 28th, 1929.

Rain fell during the night, and was still falling when the day came. If it would continue for the next 24 hours, and be accompanied by a rise in the temperature, it would rank as a national benefit, & might even affect the Election!

The chapel being in the dirt and dust of Dilapidations work, Ella and I attended the celebration at St Anne's, and received the Holy Communion together. The curate, Hamilton, celebrated reverently, and I noted with satisfaction that the service was that which the Prayer Book orders. I was pleased to see Alexander, John, Mrs Berry, & one of the maids among the communicants. I had said nothing to Ken, so that their attendance was entirely voluntary, & may be fairly taken as disclosing a pious purpose. Religion is so easily conventionalized, and becomes the victim of every kind of irrelevant interest so readily, that one must needs welcome any indication, however slight, that suggests an element of spontaneity in its observances. [64] The rest of the day I spent in writing letters, walking around the Park in the rain, and reading – an idle Sunday. Inter alia I read through the prooss of "Disestablishment", which had come in during my absence, and been corrected by Lionel. The time is unusually unfavourable to the poor book, for while the General Election will absorb public attention, the King's illness has thrown a fresh veil of sentiment over the monarchy, & made the mere notion of Disestablishment more than ever repugnant. I am not satisfied with the book itself, which is ill constructed, ill–expressed, and not adequate to the occasion & the theme. But I was tired when I wrote it, and the consciousness of universal disapprobation is not exhilarating. Moreover, the public is "fed up" with ecclesiastical affairs, & only desires to forget the miserable Prayer Book business. I have the odious aspect of "a troubles of Israel"!

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