The Henson Journals

[264]

Tuesday, 0ctober 31st, 1916.

820th day

I left Carlisle station at 10 a.m., and was back in the Deanery at 1.30 p.m. Macdonald from West Hartlepool was in the drawing room, waiting to see me. He stayed to lunch, after which we went to the Cathedral for the service of 'Dismissing the Bishop's Messengers.' Everything was decent, reverent, & impressive enough. The Bishop delivered a sermon, & then gave a large number of clergymen their commissions. Afterwards he came into the Deanery, and had tea. In the course of his sermon the Bishop referred to the primitive custom of public confession of sins, approved it, declared with much solemnity his intention of adopting it there & then, and forthwith proceed to express in general terms his own consciousness of failure. He reminded us that he had been publicly enthroned on All Saints Day just 15 years ago. Now is this confession in any true sense? Does it cost one anything to affirm publicly that one is very sane of one's mistakes & failures? Would not the really hard thing be to say how perfectly convinced one is that on the whole one had done finely, far better than many bishops one could name? And would not the sincerity of the latter declaration be greater than that of the former? I suppose that in no part of the Christian scheme has convention been more petrifying than in all that concerns the primary matter of repentance. The mere fact that repentance is insisted upon as the first condition of discipleship compels every Christian tacitly or avowedly to lay claim to the character of a penitent. The publican continues to repeat his lowly prayer after he has learned of the Lord's approval but he borrows the spirit of the rejected Pharisee, who thus takes his revenge for his rejection!

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