The Henson Journals

[63]

Tuesday, July 15th, 1919.

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I received a long & affectionate letter from Linetta, and I answered it forthwith. Most part of the morning was spent at the Jarvis School, where I presided over a meeting of the Trustees. In the afternoon I read the paper, and "fooled away" the time until Wynne–Willson came for the letters. There was nothing of real importance.

Somebody sends me the parish magazine of "St Silas–the–Martyr" Kentish Town. It is an illuminating document, & merits the study of anyone who wd understand he Church of England. The most part consists of a letter from the Vicar, Mr Napier Whittingham, who writes from Cadenabbia, where he is acting as chaplain. One passage interested me particularly: –

"Never before has the necessity for electing our own Bishops been so clear: few of the present occupants of Sees wd be in them if the Church had her own way. Blind leaders of the blind, "semper pavidi", as Dr Newman said years ago, they dare take no action that will magnify the Church, but instead court popularity by proposing the interchange of pulpits with Nonconformists, & the admission of women as preachers, & possibly some day as priests. Small wonder, that Dr Gore, Bp of Oxford, has resigned his see, & will have none of them."!!!!

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Edmund Gosse has a very sensible letter on the Crusade for Prohibition which the Americans are about to start in this country. I was moved to write to the Times in the same interest. One disadvantage of living in the country is that there must needs be so long delay before anything can appear. It is unlikely that my letter will be published before Friday at the earliest.

In the form of recantation provided for certain Anabaptists in the year 1575 the religious identity of the Church of England and the Dutch Church in London is distinctly affirmed. The abjurant has to say:

"further I confess, that the whole doctrine & religion established in this realm of England, as also that which is received & practised in the Dutch church here in this city, is sound, true & according to the word of God, etc."

It is rather startling to find Elizabeth issuing a special commission to Sir Nicholas Bacon to burn hereticks. But the Reformed Churches could not quickly or easily purge their minds of the old persecuting assumptions, & they felt themselves under a special necessity of demonstrating their orthodoxy by such acts of religious zeal.

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