The Henson Journals

[316]

Thursday, September 12th, 1929.

[symbol]

Rain began falling about lunch time, & continued until nightfall. None the less the three ladies insisted on visiting the Newcastle Exhibition. I went with them to the City, and had my hair cut. Then we all assembled at Benwell Tower, and had tea with the Bishop of Newcastle. He is in good spirits, and says that he has no difficulty in filling up his livings, & a good prospect of Ordination candidates. My poor diocese seems to be uniquely unfortunate. Why? Some reasons lie on the surface e.g.

1. the absence of parish priests competent to train deacons. This is unquestionable & largely owing to Bishop Moule's action in ordaining & appointing inadequate men.

2. the high rates and ill repute of the district. There is a general desire to avoid the sphere of triumphant "Labour".

3. the absence of a good type of curate, which could attract to the diocese men of like age and quality. This is a very potent factor in the problem.

[317]

[symbol]

4. the neighbourhood of younger & popular Bishops e.g. Newcastle, Carlisle, Wakefield, Ripon, Liverpool, Manchester, and York. All these are my juniors, & have a hold on the Universities.

5. the unpopularity of all the causes with which the Bishop of Durham is associated, & his lordship's total lack of party connexions, to say nothing of unattractive and, so to say, irreligious aspect.

Here are causes enough to explain the fact that Durham is nearing a complete impasse in the crucial matter of 'manning the church'. Unhappily it is hard to see how any of them is removable. Bailey of S. Ignatius, Sunderland, writes to tell me that he is meditating departure from the diocese in order to become a Vicar of a moorland parish in Westmoreland. He has been a wholesome influence, and will be hard to replace. His loss following the break–down of Knowlden & Harlow, and the transference of Blackwall to Northallerton means that 4 of the best incumbents have fallen out. It is really a desperate outlook.

[318]

"Lofty maxims and sacred names were invoked in Parliament much more frequently than of old, but he who will observe how some questions of the most vital importance to the Constitution of England and the well–being of the Empire have in our generation been bandied to and fro in the party game, how cynically the principles of one year have sometimes been abandoned in the next, how recklessly prominent politicians have sought to gain their ends by setting the poor against the rich, & planting in the nation deadly seeds of class animosities and cupidities, may well learn to look with tolerance and with modesty upon the England of the past."

Lecky. History vol. vii. P384.

These are the concluding words of Lecky's History of the xviiith century, of which the final volumes were published in 1890.

More than a generation has passed, and his strictures on the politicians of his time may be applied with even greater fitness to their successor in ours.

---