The Henson Journals
Fri 11 July 1930
Volume 50, Pages 131 to 132
[131]
Friday, July 11th, 1930.
The weather was pleasantly cooler this morning. I spent the day in the Conference, but very uselessly, for the speeches, with one or two exceptions were poor & irrelevant. The American bishops again distinguished themselves. They are so [fatuously] jocose, & so [foolishly] declamatory. I suppose they talk like that among themselves. Their fluency is appalling, but they don't seem to have any adequate understanding of what they say. The Bishop of Madras (Waller) is a man of sense & ability. In 1920 he was Bishop of Tinnivelly. Southwark made a good speech on the question of faith–healing: & Frere, looking very ascetic, impressed the Conference by a speech on communities, in the course of which he said that but for unction preceded by prayer and confession, & followed by the Holy Communion he would not have been with us. This allusion to his recent illness, made with simplicity & solemn conviction was very moving. He is and looks the perfect monk. Manchester ̭(Warman)̭ spoke well on the shortage of the clergy.
[132]
[struck through] I found a branch of Barclay's Bank in Victoria Street, and changed a cheque.
I dined in the Athenaeum, where also I read through, rather curiously, another novel by Upton Sinclair – 'The mountain City'. It is another repulsive description of American Life. At lunch, the Bishop of Chicago sat by me, & talked freely. He is a rather sullen looking man with a truculent manner. I asked him if he had read the article on Chicago in the Times. He replied that he had read it, and that it was quite true. He endeavoured to belittle the shocking facts, but ascribing the monopoly of violent crime to the foreign–born immigrants. Also, he essayed to 'turn the tables' on me by dwelling on the godlessness of the numerous arrivals from England. It is clear that these Americans are growing conscious of their extreme unpopularity in this country. They are so habituated to adulation that a cessation thereof afflicts them with an acute sensed of injury.[end]