The Henson Journals

[155]

Tuesday, February 8th, 1921.

"The trend of conservative & religious minds towards medievalism became pronounced, as it always will in Christian countries in times of spiritual & social anarchy, or after a surfeit at the feasts of reason & materialist conceptions of nature & life. The great European minds have, since the Renascence, been oscillating between Olympus and Golgotha, moving to & fro in search either of happiness or redemption.

Beer.I.275.6

This is written with reference to the early decades of the XIXth century which witnessed the rise of the Tractarians in this country. The favouring conditions for another "throw–back" to medievalism are certainly with us again, viz. 'spiritual & social anarchy. We, too, have been surfeited with "feasts of reason & materialist conceptions of nature & life". Are we about to witness the triumph of another great religious Reaction? Is this not really the key to what we are actually experiencing in ecclesiastical affairs? There is no response to appeals either to the reason or to the conscience among our most religious people. They are dominated by the non–rational and non–moral factors. The Sacramental System commands a ready acceptance, & all manner of speculative doctrines about the life after death are welcomed greedily. A priest is more to the taste of the English Churchman than a preacher or a critick.

[156]

I motored with Clayton into Durham, & instituted &c in the Cathedral at noon. Then I called on the Bishop of Jarrow, whom I found to be fairly recovered from his illness. We lunched pleasantly with Wilson, & then (leaving Clayton behind) I went to Birtley, & had an interview with Barclay, & his Rural Dean, Little. I found that he had certainly committed irregularities in the manner of choosing representatives for the Ruridecanal, & diocesan conferences. His churchwarden, Dr Harrison, is heading a faction, and "beating the 'No Popery' drum". He admitted that there was resentment in the Parish caused by his introduction of the Eucharistic Vestments, & offered to abandon them if I requested him to do so. I said that I would take thought on the matter. It is not so clear a case as might appear ̶ whether it would be wise for me to take advantage of his complaisance, for the eucharistic vestments have now become the very citadel of the whole "Catholick" position, they are being everywhere introduced into the Churches, their legality (in spite of law, history, & common sense) is everywhere assumed, and to cause their abandonment might well be the signal for a considerable outcry, which would itself be probably less helpful to peace than the offensive vestments themselves! Nor can I really trust that any "Catholick" with respect to such a matter would act in good faith. I should probably be represented as coercing the incumbent into a course which his conscience abhorred!

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