The Henson Journals

[119]

Easter Eve, April 3rd, 1920.

Taken simply as a gain for human happiness, no greater work was ever done in history than when Jesus of Nazareth swept away the whole intermediate world of "weak & beggarly" gods & demons, & all the slavery of superstition connected with it. Henceforth religion was a personal relation to Christ, & not to lower beings.

Gwatkin, Early Church History I, p. 226

The damp depressing weather continues, & so does my incapacitating cold! A long type–written letter from Dicey was my principal letter. He is deeply disturbed about the Irish Bill, and rather shocked at the readiness of leading Unionists to support it: "They feel that the Labour party are prepared to adopt even Sinn Feiners & murderers as allies. They also perceive, what is, I fear, true, that the next great political battle will be a life & death battle between Socialists & defenders of individual property & individual freedom. They want at all costs to get the Irish questions out of the way, so that their hands may be free to fight Socialism or Bolshevism. I don't believe this Home Rule Bill will in any sense even settle the Irish question. But the precedent of winning a political success thro 'assassinations will not be lost either upon the Bolshevists of the continent or of England". I agree entirely with this judgement, & share this foreboding.

Gillenders telegraphs that Nelson's institution is postponed to May 7th because the Bishop of Exeter is summoned abroad. I wired to the Bishop in rather urgent terms.

[120]

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April 3rd, 1920.

My dear Madam,

The church is the company or society of those who worship God in Christ: and, certainly, no one who was conscientiously unable to join in that worship would fitly or naturally receive the Holy Communion. The old Creeds are designed to express the conviction that Jesus was, and is, in unique sense Divine, and, therefore, the Object of Christian devotion. Questions have been raised, & are actively debated within the Church, as to the circumstances & conditions of His "holy Nativity" & Resurrection, about the 'signs' or 'miracles' related in the Gospels, & on other points, but these questions are only legitimately discussed among Christians within the broad governing conviction of His Divine Lordship, attested by His sinless manhood & His triumph over Death. S. Paul's summary of essential belief still holds: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, & shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved' (Rom. X. 9). Apart from these beliefs, what could Christianity be more than a liberal version of Judaism?

Believe me.

Yours v. faithfully

H. H. Hereford

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