The Henson Journals

[139]

10th Sunday after Trinity, August 12th, 1917.

1105th day

Still the wet weather. We rose in good time for the service in church at 8.30 a.m. What does the Holy Communion tend to become in my life? Probably the settled dominance of the practice of frequent communion disinclines me for self–examination on this point. But for this very reason, perhaps, the task is the more needed. It is not the case that I attach any importance to theories about the Sacrament. The whole controversy about the conditions of "validity", and the manner of the "real presence" is tiresome to me, and almost meaningless. I have not the smallest doubt in my mind that the "bread–breaking" of a handful of humble "sectaries" is as truly the Sacrament, perhaps more truly, which Christ ordained and sanctions, as the solemn Masses of Rome, or the decent "Lord's Supper" of the English Church. The one known & indispensable condition of "validity" as far as the communicant is concerned is a "good will", in which must needs be included the faith, charity, & repentance on which the Prayer–Book insists. If the moral unworthiness of the minister & his intellectual defects cannot bar the saving graces of Christ's Ordinance from the faithful Christian, surely some irregularity in his ecclesiastical position cannot do so. This view, however, presupposes in the communicant an honest persuasion that no such irregularity in the celebrant exists. "He that doubteth is condemned if he eat". Hooker's view of the Divine Presence as not objective in the Elements but manifested in the heart of the faithful Communicant, seems to me the most satisfying, and the most congruous with the Gospel. The notion of the Divine Presence as permanently localized in Bread & Wine by the act of priestly consecration appears to me more accordant with the thinking of fetish worshippers than with that of Christians. Yet this is the underlying assumption of the controversy about "Reservation", and alone justifies the practices of devotion which gather about the Reserved Sacrament. It appears to me altogether inadmissible, & when admitted, necessarily very degrading.

[140]

Wordsworth describes the rich imaginative life of the adolescent very admirably.

"My seventeenth year was come;

And, whether from this habit rooted now

So deeply in my mind; or from excess

In the great social principle of life

Coercing all things into sympathy,

To unorganic natures were transferred

My own enjoyments; or the power of truth

Coming in revelation, did converse

With things that really are; I, at this time,

Saw blessings spread around me like a sea.

Thus while the days flew by, the years passed on,

From Nature and her overflowing soul,

I had received so much, that all my thoughts

Were steeped in feeling: I was only then

Contented, when with bliss ineffable

I felt the sentiment of Being spread

O'er all that moves & all that seemeth still;

O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought

And human knowledge, to the human eye

Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;

O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,

Or beats the gladsome air; o'er all that glides

Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,

And mighty depth of waters.

The overflowing sentimentality of adolescence is the key to all its distinctive phenomena – calf–love, friendships, "conversion", poetry, even vice.

[141]

We attended Mattins. The congregation was very scanty, & most of the adults were visitors. Mr Pybus, the Vicar, officiated. His sermon was an extemporaneous harangue on the duty & blessedness of almsgiving: but it was evidently unprepared, & delivered in a harsh voice, so that I was not edified. For I could not but reflect that this little sermon represented almost the whole serious work of the week. In a community of some 250 souls living in so healthy a place there must be very little sick–visiting: and one afternoon weekly devoted to normal visiting would suffice. There is a village school, and it is possible that the Vicar himself gives some or all of the religious teaching. That would mean ¾ hour, daily for five days in the week. In August, however, the school is dispersed for the holiday. I fear there may be much ground for the layman's complaint that the parson has a "soft" job.

After lunch Hughes walked with me on the moors, or rather (for the keeper is sensitive about his birds) as near to the moors as it was safe to go without disturbing the grouse, for whose destruction sportsmen are gathering at Blanchland. We had tea with the Hughes family in their cottage: and then wrote letters till Evensong. I wrote to Lord Chelmsford, Mary Radford, and Fawkes.

Mr Pybus preached at some length at Evensong, a thin, rambling discourse, which took much more time to deliver than it could possibly have taken to prepare. There was a very small congregation. The main impression left on me by the services was that of a tactless, self–centred, rather idle person and an indifferent people. But impressions are not to be over–emphasized. Hughes tells me that this Pybus neither teaches in the day–school, nor concerns himself much with the Sunday School. After dinner we strolled up the hill, & returning held some converse with captain Apperley & Mr Forster, who had come to Blanchland to shoot grouse. Mr Forster very kindly volunteered to send us home in his car. This, in view of the shortage of petrol and police restrictions, is a generous proposal.

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