The Henson Journals

[13]

Tuesday, December 10th, 1929.

Mary Baker–Wilbraham went away after breakfast. I wrote a number of letters, & then did some more work on the Address to the P.C.C.s. After lunch I walked round the Park with Pattinson and the dogs.

We motored to Consett, where I addressed the P.C.C.s of that Deanery. There was a good attendance, and the uRral Dean, Myers, presided. Francis Priestman and Parr of Medomsley, respectively moved and seconded a vote of thanks. There was only one, and that a fatuous question, but the attendance was close and sustained. I was assured that everybody was interested.

Three impressions are made on me by these gatherings:

1. The poor social quality of the P.C.C.s in the diocese. "Not many mighty, not many noble" are called to office in this diocese, & I suspect the same holds for the whole country.

2. Their total ignorance of all that Establishment has meant and does mean. The whole subject is unfamiliar and bewildering to them.

3. Their dread and dislike of "Anglo–Catholicism". They have not been reconciled to it by all the missioning of recent years. No doubt the agitation against the Revised Prayer Book has not been without effect, but this hatred of 'Anglo–Catholicism' is an older sentiment.

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