The Henson Journals

[163]

Tuesday, March 18th, 1930.

I made notes for the Spital Sermon. It occurred to me that something might be made of the parallel and the difference between pre–Christian & Christian civilization as illustrated by the Royal Hospitals of London. Rostovzeff's "Social & Economic History of the Roman Empire" is rather suggestive.

Pattinson and I motored to South Shields, where I confirmed about 65 persons in S. Stephen's Church. The sexes were about equally represented, a welcome spectacle after the gross disparity at Beamish. Anderson, the Vicar of S. Aidan's, told me that he had been making a special visitation of his parish in order to discover what children it contained, & that he had found a disconcertingly large number of houses without any children at all. They are occupied by elderly couples, either childless or with grown–up families. The younger married people had generally moved to the new houses builded [sic] by the municipality in the suburbs. The absence of children is an untoward condition of parochial life. It takes half the interest out of pastorate and all the joy. We returned to Auckland after the service in a heavy snow–fall, but the temperature is too high to admit of anything but slush.

---