The Henson Journals
Tue 13 November 1917
Volume 22, Page 41
[41]
Tuesday, November 13th, 1917.
1198th day
This day has been wasted in fruitless attempts to write the "Edinburgh Article". I cannot do it: why, I know not, but I have no ideas, and no words! I attended Mattins & Evensong.
The Minister of Carrs Lane Church, Birmingham, writes to accept my suggestion of April 14th as the date on which I should preach there. He has "a firm conviction" that my doing so "would further the cause of Christian fellowship". So I am committed to another adventure in partibus schismaticorum [schismatic parts]!
Fawkes sends me a cutting from the "Daily News" scoffing at some statement which the Bishop of London is reported to have made in S. Martin's, Trafalgar Square, where he gave an address on Religion in Public schools. His Lordship, it is alleged, "hoped that in the attempt to extend the Divorce Act their public school boys wd stand firm in maintaining the Christian law of marriage". It is quite in Ingram's manner to perpetrate absurdities of that kind.
The Rev. Reginald W. T. Petch writes to suggest as the title of the address, which I have promised to give in Manchester on December 4th, "Limits of Autonomy in the Church of England", and adds the Bishop's alternative proposal, "A National Church: its Rights & Responsibilities". Neither the one subject, nor the other pleases me. What would please me best, and probably be most useful, would be a direct attack on the Report of the Archbishops' Committee, but this probably would give offence in some quarters. If only I were free from the "Life" and the "Article"!