The Henson Journals

[163]

1st Sunday in Lent, February 13th, 1921.

O God, save me from sinking into a lowering & even lower habit of thought and speech under the awful patience which Thou shewest to the sons of men. Give me a clearer sense of Thy Presence, and a more vivid consciousness of my own sins, & make my life a way of discipline for my character, for Jesus Christ's sake

Amen

The saddest circumstance of the clergyman's life, and that which both disconcerts me and makes me afraid, is the facility with which he loses touch with the very meaning of his character as a commissioned exponent of Christ's Religion. He is, like the rest, "earning his living" as a member of a profession, & he enjoys exemption from none of the humbling incidents of that fact. But he is largely unhelped by the conditions of secular work. He has no trustworthy evidences of success; those which, in the case of his secular contemporaries, might be fairly depended upon, are in his case worthless. What is the spiritual value of his neighbours' good opinion? What trust can be placed in his own self–satisfaction? What sure inference may be drawn from his professional success? "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you!" – is Christ's word: "Not every one that calleth me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven". "Did I not choose you, the Twelve, and one of you is a devil". Such utterances of the Lord leave little room for complacency in any considering clergyman's mind.

[164]

I wrote to George, Arthur, Ernest, Colin, Watson, Colonel Thomlinson, Lord Muir Mackenzie, Prof. Edward Moore, Olive, and Elizabeth.

Beyond celebrating the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. in the Chapel, I did no episcopal work, remaining in my study, writing letters and reading, save for an hour's strolling in the garden to take the air.

The new number of the "Church Quarterly Review" has an interesting article on the non–juror "Thomas Deacon" by H. P. K. Skipton. It incorporates some facts about the man which have recently come to light in the papers of Bishop Thomas Brett, the Premier of the Nonjurors, recently acquired by the Bodleian. It is interesting to notice how the jargon about "Catholicism", now so familiar & so offensive among our "Anglo–Catholicks", was freely employed by the Non–jurors. Thus the title of an Essay by Bishop Brett is, 'An Essay to procure Catholic Communion upon Catholic Principles'. The 'Orthodox British Catholic Church' which consisted of Deacon's section of the Nonjurors was the tiniest of sects. "Sixty seems to be an outside estimate of their number" i.e. of Mr Deacon's congregation at Manchester, & he was the head of the 'Church', where he went on 'consecrating phantom Bishops to minister to dwindling congregations'. The doctrine of our 'Anglo–Catholicks' is not less narrow, nor is their temper less intolerant. Both have historically descended to them from the Nonjurors viâ the Tractarians.

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