The Henson Journals

[122]

Monday, February 10th, 1930.

We left Dean's Yard after breakfast, & went together as far as the Atheneum where we parted. Ella went on to King's Cross where she caught the 10 a.m. express; & I went to Downing Street. There I had an interview with the Prime Minister's Secretary, a young man named Neville Butler. We discussed the administration of the Crown Patronage with special reference to the two vacant livings – St Jude's, South Shields, and S. Paul's, Stockton–on–Tees.

I went to King's Cross & caught the 1.15 p.m. express. Pattinson met me at Darlington with the car. I relieved the tedium of the journey by reading Sinclair Lewis's novel, 'Babbitt'. It is a disgusting picture of a vulgar, sensual, money–making, money worshipping society. There is plainly no place at all in the normal American's life for the things of the mind or of the spirit. A rather degraded sentimentality has succeeded to religion, and the dictates of the conscience have been replaced by 'the rules of the game'. And the game itself is Mammonism its worst.

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