The Henson Journals

[284]

Tuesday, August 27th, 1929.

I made a start on my "Letter of Advice to a Young Clergyman just instituted to the care of souls in a large parish", which I intend to print in the next 'Bishoprick', for the rebuking (indirectly) of Merryweather, to the general edification of the clergy.

After an early lunch, we all motored to South Shields, & joined Shaddick and his wife, who had arranged for us to go with them in a tug from Tynemouth to Newcastle & back. The weather was perfect for an excursion on the river: we were accompanied by a young man named Tate, who was an excellent guide: the great river lined with ship–yards, quays, & factories is an amazing spectacle. We returned to Shaddick's Vicarage & Auckland Castle in exactly 61 minutes which represents an average of more than 30 miles in the hour. We got back to Auckland at 7.9 p.m.

[285]

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A terrible bereavement has befallen that poor little parson, H. T. Lovejoy, the Vicar of S Cuthbert's, Monkwearmouth. By inadvertently pressing the accelerator of his car, he ran over his wife who was sitting on the grass some yards in front of the car. The poor lady, who was 74 years old, was carried to the Alnerick Infirmary where she died. I wrote to the poor man a letter of condolence, but what can one say in presence of such an affliction?

The chapter on "Daily Services" included in the volume "The National Church", published in 1908 (i.e. 21 years ago) hardly expresses my present mind, though there is nothing in it which I can repudiate. The Church of England as it appears to the Bishop of Durham in 1929 is very different from the Church of England as it appeared to the Canon of Westminster in 1908. Then I had no knowledge of the type of clergyman which I now generally represent in the Vicarages & rectories of the diocese of Durham, & much that was relevant enough to what I saw 21 years ago is altogether unsuitable to what I see now.

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