The Henson Journals

[142]

Monday, April 19th, 1920.

I returned to the Swedish lectures. I called on the Archdeacon, whom I found in bed with a bad chill. After lunch I motored with Mary to Kilpeck & Abbey Dore. Then I dictated letters to Fearne. Before going to bed I dipped into Creighton's life. There are many good things in it. In 1899 there was a grave situation in the Church of England. Creighton foretold that "self–government" would mean disruption.

"Englishmen always act very legally: they wd make a broad system, with very little discretion beyond. The ritualists wd have to recognise that they must fall in, or go; this wd be much more apparent then than now. There wd be much stricter subordination required. Everything wd be much more definite. I am tolerably certain that this wd rapidly end in disruption. If this were confined to England, it wd be bad enough; but the Anglican communion in the empire wd follow in some degree."

The last 20 years have witnessed a steady worsening of the position. The ritualists have become more Roman & incomparably more anarchic.

"The tolerance which the extreme people ask for is the right to do whatever they like, irrespective of the organisation to which they belong. They will not try to get what they want by persuading others of its harmlessness, by agitating, by explaining, by moving in Convocation. They take the right to do what they like, & are aggrieved at the narrow–mindedness of those who distrust them."

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