The Henson Journals

[499]

Tuesday, November 23rd, 1915.

477th day

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The post brought a preacher's fee from Cambridge. It seems a shame to take even a pittance of three guineas from that distressed institution. Walter White, an old choir–boy of St. Margaret's, Westminster, sends me his photograph, but I could not recognize him. I spent most of the day in going through the Elizabethan Injunction &c, Royal & Episcopal, with a view of shewing from them what manner of change the Reformation implied in the religion of the English people. Mrs Rogerson, Miss Liddell, Mrs Luxmore, & Canon Fowler came to lunch. I attended Evensong. My predecessor, Dean Waddington, is said to have objected to pictures in the dining room as likely to distract from the main business of the table! There is a working philosophy disclosed in that view, but it is hardly possible to bring it under the description of Christianity.

There are clear indications in these Elizabethan documents that our Reformers regarded what Abp. Parker calls the 'old massing chalices' as unfit for the use of English Churchmen in the administration of the Holy Communion. The objection seems to be based less on their inconvenience, (for they are not designed for the communion of the laity) than on their contamination by association with the 'idolatry' of the Mass. We have, indeed, travelled far from such a point of view: yet I suspect it remains the case that it is 'the Mass that matters'.

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