The Henson Journals
Wed 9 April 1930
Volume 49, Pages 196 to 197
[196]
Wednesday, April 9th, 1930.
My whole morning was wasted in writing letters, none of which was of any real importance. Pattinson and I motored to Ryhope after lunch, and there I confirmed 114 persons. This was a pleasing service. After tea with the Vicar, we went on to Bishopwearmouth, where, after an early dinner at the Rectory I confirmed 85 persons in the parish church. Among the female candidates was Nancy, the Rector's daughter. I gave her a copy of Thomas à Kempis. In spite of the wetness of the night, there was a large congregation.
I received from G. M. Trevelyan a most interesting reply to my inquiry about Wingfield Stratford, whose history of British Civilization had interested me so much.
"He has reading of an extensive & discursive kind: whether he has learning depends on one's definition of the word, for his mind is a curious one. He always walks by himself alone up any alley that offers. Consequently he is often illuminating & suggestive, often unnecessarily and paradoxically wrong. [197] His mind remains as it was twenty years ago, that of a clever undergraduate. He is a strange mixture of old Tory and rash Radical in his opinions. If he is prejudiced, they are his own prejudices – & that is something. The good and bad of him is that his mind is always on fire. It is long since he has been at Cambridge, but his old friends there – historians & others – regard him with affection tempered by a fear of being bored, for he is one of those endless talkers, good for the first hour & then superfluous. I don't think he has balance of judgement, but he has intellectual zeal, wide reading, and passion".
This is an acute and discriminating description. Trevelyan proceeds to discuss the attitude of Cambridge towards Christianity in a very interesting way. He thinks that there is less hostility than heretofore: partly, because the anti–Christians are largely disillusioned with their own substitutes for the Gospel: & partly because the cause of Christianity is now represented by a far more attractive & reasonable type of advocate.