The Henson Journals

[187]

Thursday, September 27th, 1917.

1151th day

My mind revolved last night's conversation. Am I not open to the formidable criticism that such doubts & apprehensions as I confess are properly incapacitating? What fitness is there in a religious teacher who is not sure of his message, or of its power to win audience? What value is there in a religious leader who has no confidence in his cause? These questions are grave, & compel reflection. Is it enough to answer that I have no vision of anything truer or more effective than Christianity? that I think an epoch of alienation and disaster may possibly be but the prelude of a great religious revival in the truest sense? that I think the essentially important thing is to keep the fight going, not to win? Does it necessarily argue any guilty disbelief, if I hold that the present version of Christianity is obsolescent, & widely obsolete? that the formulas & institutions of Christ's Religion are ceasing to serve their proper purpose? that the conscience & reason of the people are no longer accordant with the traditional theology? that the morality of the Churches seems largely irrelevant to the actual circumstances of human conduct? But, even allowing the legitimacy of all these positions, can they reasonably coexist with the tenure of ecclesiastical office, or the exercise of a teaching ministry? The answering of this decisive question turns to a great extent on considerations which though indirect, are very cogent. I cannot rightly refuse to consider the inferences which wd inevitably be drawn from my retirement from office, & from my refusal to accept a bpk if it were offered me. It wd be said that I had ceased to believe in Christianity in the one case; that I despaired of Anglicanism, in the other. Neither of these inferences wd be sound. I do not wish to be thus interpreted. Moreover, I suspect that my own thoughts have gone considerably ahead of those of my contemporaries: and that they would be gravely injured by the bold statement of suspicions & conclusions which, when they arrive naturally in their own order, will be comparatively innocuous. It wd be a very dreadful thing to shake out of religious conviction even so much as one dull honest soul.

[188]

I attended Mattins: went to the Bank & got some money: bade farewell to Joyce Ilbert. Ker sate in my study & went through a bundle of the Warden's letters. Mrs Wilkinson & her sister came to lunch. Afterwards we all walked for two hours: then I wrote to George. My letter "Matins" on Sunday appeared in the "Times".

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