The Henson Journals

[116]

Tuesday, August 6th, 1918.

1464th day

I gave my doctor a copy of my volume of sermons, and continued my reading of "Faith & Freedom". The essays vary much both in practical value and in literary quality. Perhaps the best in the last respect is the worst in the first. The writer, Mr Clutton–Brock, does not give the impression of sincerity, & his contribution is little better than a piece of showy journalism. He writes much of the Church, but he is never at the pains to define it: he writes of "morality", which he uses in the lower senses of social convention. All the writers are too vague and rhetorical. On the hole the Editor, Matthews, strikes me as the sincerest and most relevant. Harold Anson is at once forcible and "floppy". None of them realizes sufficiently the practical bearings of his large demands and larger assumptions. Their war–experiences are not so revealing or so important as they appear to think.

[117]

The Bishop of Bristol came to see me. He walked with me to the Palace, and there we had much talk. He is much impressed by the report of the service in Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday, when one Nonconformist minister read a lesson, and another gave an address at a special service in the Nave, held with the approval of the Archbishop. This in his opinion "altered the whole situation", and facilitated prompt action in the mater of "interchange of pulpits".

---