The Henson Journals

[63]

15th Sunday after Trinity, September 28th, 1930.

A dull clouded morning, but still & without rain. I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. Canon Boot assisted & read the Epistle. Beside the clergy & the six candidates, there communicated Ella, Edward Bryden and his wife. The Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount with its decisive demand: "No man can serve two masters", and the comfortable assurance: "Your Heavenly Father knoweth", accorded well with the situation. The time of Ordination must needs be one of great emotional strain, when the heart needs comfort even more than the conscience needs quickening.

Charles went to the rescue of Morris Young at New Shildon, who is again ill, but he got back in time to read at breakfast. I divided the duty with him. We read Bigg's Ordination Addresses. They are excellent.

I myself read Mattins, for Charles had to go to S Andrew's, Tudhoe Grange, & celebrate. The shortage of the clergy is becoming a grave practical inconvenience. Boot gave his second address. He certainly has not much to say, and he does not say it very impressively, but he is nearly 77 years old, and has recently had some kind of facial paralysis.

[64]

I wrote to George Nimmins. After lunch I walked for an hour in the Park with Canon Boot. He has many reminiscences of the great Twin brothers, Lightfoot & Westcott.

After tea I had private interviews with the candidates. They all seem very serious and filled with good purpose.

I delivered my charge at Evensong. It was perhaps somewhat too discursive, detailed, and severe. There is so much to be said, of course one does but deceive one's self if one admits the notion that anything said by the Bishop will carry any weight against the counsels of principals and confession. It is these last who were the real directors. However, one cannot lightly abandon the rights of one's office, and none can doubt that it is the Bishop's right to counsel the youth when he ordains.

I had some talk with Canon Best before going to bed. He is not friendly to the Anglo–Catholicks, and professes no great love for Evangelicals. His churchmanship is of the old–fashioned pastoral type, not welcomed by our young Seminarists.

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