The Henson Journals

[60]

Saturday, December 6th, 1919.

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The Enabling Bill passed its 3rd Reading in the House of Commons "amid cheers". Nothing could have been more futile & helpless than the brief debate which preceded the passage. Beyond a few Dissenters, who were handicapped by their own sectarian principles, there were none who indicated any dislike of the Bill. The Establishment has fallen like an overripe fruit. How soon the endowments will follow remains to be seen. [I never realized before how complete is the ruin of organized Christianity. It is now only an affair of sectarian zealots with which it is as much concerned as with the harmless absurdities of the millenarians!] No longer can any man claim the Englishman as such for the Church of England. Baptism could have been assumed, and, as it sufficed to create membership in the Church of Christ, so it was held sufficient to create membership in the Church of England, which could be nothing more or less than Christ's Church in England. Now baptism must go along with a sectarian claim wh. deliberately excludes from the Church of England a larger part of the Church of Christ in England! And they brazenly assert that they have changed nothing.

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