The Henson Journals

[187]

Saturday, October 12th, 1918.

1531st day

Heavy rain all day. I lay in bed until nearly 3 p.m. In the afternoon the Dean came to see me. He thinks we should best serve our purpose of defeating the "Life & Liberty" movement, if we suffer the "Report" to go forward signed by the Chairman, & reserve our efforts for the debate in the Representative Church Council. I am disposed to agree with him, since the procedure does not admit of a minority Report, & accordingly I wrote to the Bishop of Manchester to that effect. He said that a memorial signed by nine bishops had gone in to the Archbishop against the proposed changes in the Communion Service. The dualism of the English Church created by the Tractarian movement, though latent in the original settlement of Religion under Elizabeth threatens to rend the Church asunder. There came to dinner General Smyth, Mr Gardiner, and the "padre", Mitchell, an ill–mannered fellow who had once been a curate of Bevan at Chelsea. Ruth played after dinner.

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