The Henson Journals

[167]

1st Sunday in Lent, March 1st, 1903.

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I am depressed & discouraged, & carry in the settled unhappiness of my own self the pain though not the grace of a thousand Lents. It is impossible to analyse the burden which rests on my spirits, & makes everything tiresome & futile. And Lent always superadds a distracting sense of unreality, almost of hypocrisy. For in theory we are all in sack-cloth & ashes, keeping the fast; in fact we are as we were, & our menus, even if they may slightly vary, are nowise shorter or cheaper. The absoluteness of the whole system leaps into prominence at this time: & we, the officials of a moribund Church, who cry its meaningless cries, & urge its impossible precepts, are ourselves self-convicted imposters, Victims of the obsolete!

[168]

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To the Rev. Canon Cheyne, in answer to a letter à propos of the recent correspondence in the "Times"

March 6th 1903

Dear Canon Cheyne,

It was very kind of you to write to me. I feel most strongly that the Church of England only fulfils its true role in Christendom when it stands frankly on the basis of individual liberty within the widest limits permissible to a Christian Society. No doubt the acceptance of such a conception of our Church involves also the tolerance of a measure of independent theological speculation, which might seem to an unsympathetic observer to be nothing short of dogmatic anarchy, but it also implies a faith in the coherence and intrinsic strength of truth strong enough to see beyond such anarchic aspects and intervals to a slowly growing agreement as to the essentials of the Christian revelation, which promises a firmer basis for individual conviction than any which mere authority, however decisive, could provide. Personally. I am far from being able to accept much that is put forward in the name of conclusions of criticism, but then, I know [169] [symbol] myself to be personally unable to decide on the questions at issue, while I know myself to have a most definite responsibility to guard the common heritage of liberty, which both I myself, in some directions, and the critics, whose conclusions I cannot accept, in others, enjoy, and ought to hand on undiminished to the future. The truth will emerge most certainly out of the free play and conflict of thought, but, if once authority (which really means the insistence by the timid and uninformed majority on those elements of current belief which are passing out of the category of truth into that ever growing mass of extinct dogmatics) puts its hand to the task of staking out the limits of permissible opinion, I am very sure that the lesson of Christian history will be repeated in great injustice to individuals and heavy scandals to religion. So, for all I am worth, I stand, and shall stand, in the Church of England for the policy of the open door. Dr Sanday's attitude during the last few years has caused me much perplexity and as much regret. I do not suppose [170] [symbol] that he realises the extent to which his great reputation as a sound and honest critic is being exploited in the interest of the narrowest and least respectable obscurantism. After all, there are such things as dividing lines of principle, and, however much the fact may be obscured by personal friendship and public courtesy, such a dividing line is that which falls between the theological attitude which Dr Sanday has represented in the past, and the attitude of the religious faction which now commands his sympathies and his services.

Believe me,

Very sincerely yours,

H. Hensley Henson

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Issues and controversies: recognition of/reunion with non-episcopal churches