The Henson Journals

[208]

Good Friday, April 18th, 1930.

"Moral decadence in the United States is so great that the League of Nations might help to clean up the country."

This declaration is stated to have been made to the League's Child Welfare Committee by Mlle. Marie Meonie Chaptal, president of the International Council of Nurses, (who was welcomed by President Hoover when she carried out an investigation into social & moral conditions in the United States,) when she presented a report. She is said to attribute the moral decadence of the young & especially the children of the U. S. A. to

1. Prohibition laws, which the children see being violated constantly by their parents.

2. Jazz.

3. Divorce, for wh. figures are quoted showing that for certain years 65 per cent of American divorces included families with young children.

Mlle. Chaptal also refers to the absence of religion in 50 per cent of the American families, due partly to race and religious controversies and lacd of home life. – British United Press.

This sets one thinking.

[209]

I did not go to church, but spent some time alone in the Chapel. Also, I wrote several letters, including one to that odd scholar, Dr Burch, of Liverpool Cathedral, in answer to a letter in which he stated his intention of taking Holy Orders, and indicated his conviction that he ought forthwith to be assured of a good living!!

Also I wrote to Hartill, the Vice–Principal of Lichfield Theological College, acknowledging his pamphlet on "Disestablishment, and offering a few (friendly) criticisms. I wrote to Archdeacon Rawlinson about the Commission to fix Sykes's pension, sending him the Chancellor's letters on the question of taking 'private means' into consideration, and indicating my own opinion that, in this case, the pension ought to be as small as possible. Pattinson and I walked round the Park together. There was a cold & comfortless wind which made walking unpleasing.

In the 'Guardian' there is reported a sermon of Major's preached in Westminster Abbey on 'The Causes of the death of Jesus'. It is quite woefully inadequate, & might have been preached by a Deist.

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