The Henson Journals

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Monday, January 19th, 1920.

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January 19th 1920

Dear Sir,

My dislike of the policy of secularizing ecclesiastical endowments is, I think, sufficiently known, but I am not prepared to maintain that secularisation must necessarily imply sacrilege, nor do I think that it need involve injustice. History will, I believe, justify both my general dislike of the policy, and my refusal to condemn it as sacrilegious and unjust. It has often been both, but not always: and it need be neither.

As to the situation in Wales, I do not suppose that an outside opinion is worth much, but I incline to think that the interest of the Church would be best served by ceasing from further agitation.

Believe me, Yours v. faithfully,

H. H. Hereford.

Dr G. N. W. Thomas B.d. Hon Director & Treasurer of the No Church–Robbery League

Mr Davis [sic], the Vicar of Stoke Prior, called to see me. He expressed much anxiety about the appointment to Leominster. It appears that N. announces that he is arranging the matter, and even indicates the man of his choice to the horror & consternation of the district! And he says that he will not move until Easter or thereabouts!

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I motored to Little Marcle, and called on the parson, Rev: T. Holland. He was a farmer, but having a taste for music, came into clerical company, & so got to be ordained. His training was gained at St Aidan's College! He seems an earnest man with a very limp sense of reality. He has less than 200 people to look after: and he leads their worship in a woeful little modern church, destitute of any suggestion of beauty.

Halifax's famous Essay on "The Character of a Trimmer" has some very good observations on the Church of England, which for sufficiently obvious reasons might seem designed to be the Trimmer's church:–

"Our religion here in England seemeth to be distinguished by a peculiar effect of God Almighty's goodness in permitting it to be introduced, or more properly restored, by a more regular method than the circumstances of most other Reformed churches would allow them to do in relation to the Government: & the dignity with which it hath supported itself since, & the great men our Church hath produced, ought to recommend it to the esteem of all Protestants."

I suppose the Restoration did clothe the Church of England with an extraordinary dignity, not merely in the eyes of its own members, but also in those of foreigners. It seemed to disclose a special Providence active in its interest. If James II had but been as great a hypocrite as his brother, who can say what the religious colour of England today would have been?

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