The Henson Journals

[590]

Friday, June 2nd, 1916.

669th day

I spent most part of the day in reading Cardinal Gasquet's "Edward VI and his book of Common Prayer". Cruickshank walked with me after lunch. Lillingston came to ask my counsel on the subject of the proposal to substitute the Holy Communion for Mattins as the "principal service" on the Lord's Day". It appears that the matter is being pressed by the High Church section of the National Mission Committee. I pointed out the far–reaching significance of the proposal. It could not but mean the practical surrender of the principle, fundamental to the English Reformation, that the Lord's Supper is a Communion and not a Sacrifice. There is no reason why the parish clergy should not effect this change, for the times of service are wholly in their own discretion. But prudence & pastoral duty might hesitate even when personal preference pointed the way. What would [be] the probable consequences of the change? The tendency to restore the "Mass" would receive an immense impetus. The association of the Lord's Supper with the communion of the faithful would necessarily be broken. The reading of the Bible would be limited to the Epistle & Gospel. The Church of England would make a considerable movement away from the Reformed Churches, & towards the Unreformed. On any showing these are formidable consequences. The policy which would induce them ought not to be adopted by the Church at the instance of enthusiastic Mission Committees, but only as the result of careful & protracted consideration by the leaders of the Hierarchy. That the English laity would be offended by the change appears to be certain. It is not without suggestiveness that the loudest advocate of the change is that feather–headed preferment hunter, the Bishop of Birmingham.

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