The Henson Journals

[179]

20th Sunday after Trinity, October 17th, 1920.

There is something sombrely significant in taking up a great task like mine under the shadow of great public crisis. Shall I be granted time to attempt this work? or is the Stroke of Revolution actually about to fall? We have enjoyed so long an immunity in England from the more terrific contingencies of social life, that we have come to take for granted that we shall never have to face them. Like the arrogant atheists, whom Psalmists pictures, our unspoken boast has been always the same: "Tush, say they, how should God perceive it? Is there knowledge in the Most High? There shall no harm happen onto us". Yet, not only is there no foundation for such confidence, but there are reasons for thinking that a sudden & complete collapse of the whole social fabric will be more probable in England than elsewhere. I doubt if any other modern state is so artificial, so incapable of sustaining a revolutionary repudiation of the economic conditions of its existence. The power of the Trade Unions here is far greater than elsewhere, and the disloyalty of the Labour leaders is becoming painfully apparent. With the breaking out of the Coal strike tomorrow, the second stage of the English Revolution begins: we shall soon discover how it will be correlated with the setting up of the Council of Action on August 13th, which formed the first stage. That there is an organized and determined revolutionary conspiracy behind the action of English "Labour" no longer seems to me open to doubt. The question is, how far can it capture the Labour movement as a whole?

[180]

I preached in the parish church at Mattins, & afterwards celebrated the Holy Communion. The congregation, mostly composed of women, did certainly not exceed 200 in number. Yet this parish exceeds 2500 souls. Nonconformity is very weak here, & the Roman Catholics are but a handful. It is clear enough that the most part of the people never attend any place of worship. Yet this part of England is commonly reckoned to be a stronghold of Anglicanism. If Revolution breaks out in this country, and takes an actively anti–Christian character, what power will the National Church be found to possess? If the revolutionary attack on Christianity succeeded, & the services of the Church were suspended altogether, would the majority of the people of Birchington feel themselves in any respect disadvantaged? They certainly would be under no necessity of changing their habits. I begin to think that, when the storm breaks on the Church of England, its downfall will be not less rapid and complete than that of the Church of Russia. I lunched with the Rector & his wife, then returned to the house, & wrote letters to Knight, Ernest, and Antonia Benson. Marion and I walked to Minnis Bay in a hurricane. The weather appears definitely to have broken. The "Sunday Pictorial" contains a very sensible & outspoken article on the Strike by Bottomley, which perhaps may be taken to express the feeling of the general public. Will the railwaymen support the miners?

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