The Henson Journals

[20]

Wednesday, September 10th, 1930.

I wrote a number of letters, including the dutiful "Collins" to my hostesses at Murraythwaite and Daljarrock. I wrote to the following:–

1. Gerald Rainbow

2. Revd N. Bennett

3. Prebendary Wynne Willson

4. Canon Budworth

5. Churchwardens of Christ Church, Sunderland

6. The Revd F.B. Phelps.

After lunch we all drove in to Edinburgh, and visited the Flower Show in the Waverley Market. There was a wonderful display of flower & fruit. It is astonishing that so dour a people as the Scots should yet have so keen a zest for flowers. I was impressed by the almost universal plainness of the people. The Scots are certainly a hard–featured race. I did not see one face, either male or female, which without an absurd use of language could be called either pretty or handsome. Beauty was out of the question. Mrs Mitchell gave us tea very comfortably at her Club, and then we returned to Cawood.

[21]

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I was interest by the notice–board outside S. George's Church – a church in which I preached many years ago when Dr Scott was the Minister. There was no mention whatever of Holy Commn, only Morning Services, Evening Services, the Children's Service. I reflected that the really formidable obstacle to a reunion between the Churches of England and Scotland is not, the difference in their politics, but the difference between their religious habits & standards of devotion. In the one Church, the Blessed Sacrament is the very backbone of the whole religious system, in the other it is almost a negligible factor. I do not like the temper of the Scottish Church. It impresses me as Pharisaic and exclusive, & breeds a hard, supercilious religionist. The temper of the Church of England is less easy to characterize, for there are really two churches gathered under the single description. But the distinctively Anglican type is, not Protestant but a moderately Catholick, & that type is neither Pharisaic nor exclusive. It is rather weak & worldly than hard.

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