The Henson Journals

[279]

Saturday, July 17th, 1915.

348th day

Both Sir Henry Craik & Linetta have written long letters to me about my sermon in the Abbey on the 25th July! Both dread a discourse which shall be either controversial, or minatory, or melancholy! They both desire one that shall be inspiring and consolatory! Both mitigate the severity of the censure implicit in their letters by kindly & flattering suggestions that in some special measure I am able, if I will, to give them what they wish for! Neither seems to be conscious of the extreme need in which I myself stand of precisely those two things – inspiration & comfort! Bryce said to me yesterday that the present War is the severest set–back to civilization, and the sorest trial to Christian Faith, that human experience has known: & I do not resent his words as untrue or even as excessive. We have nothing to comfort us in the tragedy but the valour & self–sacrifice of our young men, which (albeit supremely beautiful & impressive in themselves) have no special relation either to civilization or to Christianity. It is, of course, easy enough to thrill congregations with emotional rhetoric about prayer and patriotism, and to stimulate or consecrate their natural antipathy to all things German, but there seems to be little room in the process for intelligence or for piety: and there can be no doubt that, though it pleases & appears to satisfy at the moment, it does neither for long, & even at once wounds the stronger minds & the more sensitive consciences. The reigning moods of superstition and fanatical patriotism will pass, and then the minds, which they have held for awhile, will perceive the violence which has been done alike to reason and to religion.

[281]

The while my mind is really shadowed & troubled by the new difficulty which now attaches to Christian Witness, that is, to my avowed & unavoidable duty, it is at once disturbed & distracted by degrading anxieties about my professional fortunes, or, to express the fact more justly to myself, about my personal fate. If, as it were absurd not to see is no improbable contingency, it should be necessary for me to decide whether I would, or would not, accept a bishoprick, what ought I to do? A bishop is not only, like other clergymen, pledged to the advocacy of Christianity, but also, in addition, he has to lay down the lines & stake out the limits of such advocacy for others. Others can avoid difficulties which, however strongly he may feel them, he must needs face. Others can keep silent when he must speak. Others can take refuge in silence & obscurity, when he is required to declare himself in public. This is all true of every bishop, but in my case, it would be even worse. For I have openly contended for sincerity, for candour, & for large liberty in religious teaching. I should have to fulfil my difficult task under the severest scrutiny of clerical suspicion, & under the hardly less severe condition of public expectation. I have many enemies, few friends, and no serviceable allies. All these would be external circumstances of special difficulty, but, in addition, there would be all the chronic embarrassments of personal perplexity & doubt, which the bishop's office & work would intensify & increase. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if the necessity to decide came upon me, I should find myself compelled to refuse the mitre.

[283]

And yet, I can see that, if a bishoprick should be offered to me, it would be extraordinarily difficult, indeed almost impossible for me to refuse. For, in some sense, I have been the protagonist of Anglican liberty, and a refusal on my part to accept episcopal office would have the aspect of a betrayal of that cause in many eyes. I have, beyond others, asserted the Protestant character of the English Church, not in the sapless narrow sense of the Anglican manuals, but in the large significance of history, and it would be a strange failure of duty to refuse a position in which the truth of my contention might be significantly shown. For only a Protestant Church could really include among its principal officials a man of my character and antecedents. Only such a measure of uncertainty about the Christian essentials as would disqualify me for the Christian ministry itself could justify me in declining episcopal office. There remain the utterly hidden questions of personal fitness, with respect to which none but a man himself can give answer. Being what I know myself to be, could I rightly accept episcopal office? It is hardly enough to say that the responsibility for determining personal fitness cannot be left in the hands of the man himself, but must belong to those who business it is to make the appointment: for they cannot know as much of the relevant facts as he does, & may be wholly in the dark. Possibly, as to ability they must decide: but there is the graver question of personal character, which they can never really be able to answer satisfactorily, for "Who knoweth the mind of man, save the spirit of a man which is in him?"

[285]

I spend the morning in the Athenaeum, where I wrote letters to the Bishop of Durham, Sir Henry Craik, Linetta, & others. Then I lunched with Gow, who seems to be depressed. He told me that Rupert Cecil had been killed in Flanders, & his brother Victor badly wounded. The war has given an honourable ending to that bright young life, perhaps (though this is more than I know) released into activity some hidden factors of character which the normal course of things had never called upon. This is the day appointed for Mrs Pankhurst's procession of women, & I observed that Mrs Gow & another lady went off at the right time! Happily the elements made their accustomed protest against these Feminist follies, & the march of the petticoats was under dropping skies. I attended Evensong in the Abbey, had tea with Miss Pearce, and then went off to Liverpool Street to catch the train to Saffron Walden. I arrived shortly after 7 p.m., & was met at the station by the Chaplain – West. He said that he had been a pupil of mine at Oxford, that he was curate–in–charge of S. Martin in the Fields during the interval between Kitto's death & Shelford's arrival, that I had preached for him then, & later had subscribed £3.3.0 to some work of his in Australia. All these things had totally vanished from my mind, but his face was not unfamiliar. The Colonel of the Civil Service Battalion dined. He remembered me from the camp at Dover, & was very pleasant. I am the guest of the Mayor, Dr Atkinson, rather a striking little old bearded man, alert & straight; he told me (but it hardly seemed credible) that he was 77 years old. We had much conversation on military & political matters. It is evident that there is an immense amount of waste in the present management of the War. The Colonel said that it wd pay the Govt to give him £2000 a year to run his battalion, just to economize!

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