The Henson Journals

[9]

Friday, October 19th, 1917.

1173rd day

Another brilliant morning. I wrote a short letter to the 'Times' quoting the relevant portion of the Abp's letter to me, and adding that I continued to think the decision to summon the R.C.C. in November "surprising & regrettable". The Abp. is perhaps beginning to discover that a dislike for his "secret diplomacy" is very widely felt. After attending Mattins, I wrote privately to the Abp (copy of letter over page). The Dean of York and Mrs Foxley Norris called to be taken to the Carpet Factory. I showed them over the house pending Ella's arrival. After lunch I went to Sherburn Hospital, and attended a meeting of the Governors. We appointed a House Committee of six members, of whom I am one. Also we elected some Out–Brethren, & Out–Sisters. In my absence a crowded meeting was held in the Deanery in the interest of Rescue & Refuge Work in the Diocese. The Bishop of Barrow–in–Furness was the principal speaker; he stayed the night at the Deanery. Old Sir Lindsay Wood gave me a lift in his car as far as the White Gate, but I got home too late to see either the Bishop of Durham, or the Dowager Lady Londonderry. I wrote to Carissima, and made my preparations for departure early tomorrow. After dinner we sate in my study, & & talked. The Bishop of Barrow is amiable and active but conventional. He believes in the 'National Mission', is disposed to be mildly Socialistic, & rails at the Establishment as the source of our spiritual failures. I did my best to make him look at things from another point of view, but probably only succeeded in shocking him.

[10]

To the Archbishop of Canterbury

October 19th 1917

My dear Lord Archbishop,

It is very good of you to find time to write to me, &, of course, I have made no delay in conveying to the public through the "Times", the explanation which your Grace holds to be sufficient. That it does not seem so to me will not surprise, for I cannot regard even an unanimous vote of the Canterbury House of Laymen as properly competent to reverse a judgment of the Representative Church Council, & I cannot regard Lord Parmoor's resolution as anything better than an adroit method of masquing [sic] his real purposes.

But I note with genuine distress the ring of reproach in your words, as if you felt in some degree hurt by my preferring a public appeal in the "Times" to a private reference to yourself. Believe me, nothing has grieved me more than the conviction, which has grown over me during the last three or four years, that your Grace has no use any more for such services as I can render, & no approval for the course of ecclesiastical policy which I represent & pursue. That naturally will not trouble your Grace, for who cares what I think or try for? but it distresses me, because, not only do I hold ever passionately to the conception of a National Church (which is now ridiculed openly & without rebuke) but I have a personal regard for your Grace, which makes your approval very precious, & your censure very [11] painful. I am persuaded that your Grace does not perceive or realize the utterly unrepresentative character, so far as the people are concerned, of the type of Anglicanism which the "Church and State" Report illustrates, & which prevails in the ecclesiastical coteries which are most noisy & persistent. We are, as a National Church, being steered straight on to the rocks, & nothing is left to people like me but the mournful rôle & belated vindication of so many religious Cassandras!

Believe me, my dear Lord Archbishop,

always dutifully & sincerely,

H. Hensley Henson

---