The Henson Journals

[294]

14th Sunday after Trinity, September 1st, 1929.

I cannot get out of my mind that lamentable letters of farewell which the outgoing Rector of Blaydon has addressed to the people at the close of sixteen years ministry among them. What measure of pastoral sympathy and love of souls can consist with such language?

"Gratitude and decent conduct one looks for in vain. The only language which some seem to understand is that which a clergyman is debarred from using. Those from whom one expects the best support and fair treatment make things impossible, & others who do not attempt to support their parson in his difficulties must share the same dose".

"With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again". I find it difficult to believe that Christ's law of social intercourse does not apply to the people of Blaydon: &, if so, what a light on his own behaviour is cast by the Rector's wows!

[295]

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"To extract from surrounding circumstances the larger possible amount of comfort and rational enjoyment, was the ideal he placed before himself and others, & he brought to its attainment one of the shrewdest & most inventive of human intellects, one of the calmest & best balanced of human characters. 'It is hard', he once wrote, 'for an empty sack to stand upright': and it was his leading principle that a certain amount of material prosperity is the almost indispensable condition as well as the chief reward of integrity of character. He had no religious fervour, & no sympathy with those who appeal to strong passions or heroic self–abnegation: but his busy and somewhat pedestrian intellect was ceaselessly employed in devising useful schemes for the benefit of mankind."

Lecky's account of Benjamin Franklin, History of England. iv. 139.

"It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright" – the scandal shadowed records of clerical poverty provide abundant illustrations of this cynical aphorism.

[296]

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We all motored to Durham, and attended the morning service in the Cathedral. Rawlinson preached an admirable discourse from the words in the Gospel of the day. "And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger". He has an excellent voice, speaks deliberately, & intonates clearly. I told him afterwards how much the sermon pleased me. There was a choral celebration after Mattins, I celebrated. Then we returned to Auckland.

Mrs Scott, the wife of the American General who was in command at West Point, when we visited America, and who entertained us there very hospitably, was in the Cathedral, & came to tea at Auckland. She had a large, hard–faced female, with her who reminded me of that truly terrifying lady, Mrs Chapin.

Pattison & I motored to Cleadon Park, where I preached at a special Evensong arranged as a formal admission of Hector Bamlett to the curacy–in–charge in succession to Cecil Booth.

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