The Henson Journals

[127]

Tuesday, January 15th, 1918.

1261st day

The Archbishop telegraphed me to come and see him at once. I managed to catch the 11.28 a.m. train, & arrived in Lambeth about 8.15 p.m. During dinner we talked with rather a strained sense of crisis! Afterwards his Grace carried me into his study, and talked about his answer to Gore's protest. He had drafted an answer, which he was reluctant to send without consulting me, & making sure what my personal belief was. This was for his own satisfaction, not for any public use. We talked for at least 3 hours, & the Abp. drafted some kind of an explanatory statement, which he read over to me, & to which I assented. In it I said that while I repeated the statements in the Creed ex animo, & did not wish to alter them, I held that the method of the Incarnation might be conceived of otherwise than by a Virgin Birth, as was the case in the Apostolic age: that with me the question was mainly one of emphasis. I desired the teaching of the modern Church to continue the emphasis of the New Testament. That no one who sincerely worshipped Christ as Divine could postulate in His case an ordinary Birth, & that I had never found any satisfying alternative to the dogma of the Virgin Birth. I don't like this kind of informal subscription, but the Archbishop appealed to me for the relief of his own conscience in performing a very difficult act. I did not sign the statement.

[128]

The Archbishop said that Wace had at first been quite indignant with Darwell Stone's letter, and had written to the "Times" a vigorous letter pointing out the unfairness of tearing sentences from my book &c. But he had received his letter back from the "Times" Office with an indication that Sanday had already replied sufficiently! Of course Wace was furious, & wrote his disastrous little letter throwing me over. So far no diocesan bishop had joined Gore in his protest, but there would be some abstentions. I told him that I had asked Southwark & the Dean of Westminster to present me, & he expressed approval. The Archbishop had seen the extracts from my books set forth in the "Hereford Times", & described them as grossly unfair.

The whole of these proceedings displease me; but I cannot see that I could have done otherwise. The Abp. said that he had read most of my books, and remained convinced of my essential orthodoxy. There were, of course, statements which he disliked and regretted as being superfluously irritating or misleading but these were inevitable, & did not affect the general character of what I had written. I replied that I was not so vain as to suppose that I had never spoken unwisely or even mistakenly but that I certainly could not disavow any of my published books, or admit them to be unorthodox.

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