The Henson Journals

[179]

Tuesday, February 22nd, 1921.

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"Those men are but trepanned, who are called to govern, being invested with authority, but bereaved of power; which, according to a true & plain estimate of things, is nothing else but to mock and betray them into a splendid and magisterial way of being ridiculous."

South "The duties of the episcopal functions"

South had in mind the sectaries, and those who would restore the Bishops to office but strip that office of coercive power, leaving nothing but the empty pretence of an authority which could not be enforced. His words describe exactly the position to which the "Catholicks" have now reduced the English Bishops. The episcopal office is ever more highly exalted in theory: it has now become essential to the Church's being and life: but episcopal authority is limited to the purely automatic task of echoing what is called "the Catholick tradition", and this, being undefined & indefinite, becomes to every "priest" what he wills it to be. Thus the bishop must either endorse the proceedings of individual priests or forfeit his claim to obedience! What is this but to "mock and betray him into a splendid & magisterial way of being ridiculous"? Precisely at this juncture, when the practical impotence of the English Episcopate is ludicrously patent to the world, the "Appeal" of the Lambeth Conference offers the Episcopate as the one sure pledge for bestowing & securing unity & discipline!

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I motored into Durham, and lunched with the High Sheriff, whose health I proposed in a very short speech. Sir Hugh Bell was there, and I had some talk with him. He thinks that to abandon Mesopotamia would be a grievous thing, but that the continuing extravagance of the military authorities may make abandonment unavoidable. After lunch I called on Lazenby, & asked him to give me information as to the electoral rolls in the diocese of Newcastle. Then I motored to Brandon, & had an interview with the Vicar, Hayward, with the result that rather reluctantly I gave him permission to offer a title to a deacon. This parish has a population of 16,000, and an electoral roll of rather more than 2000. That roll is already being used as a method of "raising the wind", a circular having been issued calling on the electors to contribute at least 2/6 to the parochial funds! Clayton joined me at Brandon. We motored back to Durham, where I took train for York. The Abp's car met me at the station, and also met the Bp. of Carlisle. I found several bishops at the tea–table –Chavasse, Perowne, Paget, Burrows, and later Lang himself. Burrows is disposed to boast of his electoral roll, which (he asserts) contains 100,000 names, but, as the population of his diocese, approaches 1,000,000, it wd seem that he is easily satisfied. We had some discussion of the point, which is emerging in several dioceses, of the precise significance of the phrase in the Enabling Act, 'actual lay communicant'. We all agree that definition is unavoidable.

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We had much pleasant conversation, and, indeed, an onlooker might easily have supposed that we were "a band of brothers". Yet, beneath the superficial appearance of harmony & fellowship, could a more divided company be found under a single religious description? Chavasse is, perhaps, an old fashioned Evangelical, to whom modern ideas are repugnant, and only half intelligible. Eden is a Cambridge Churchman of the Lightfoot school who has long ceased to "exercise himself" in the great matters of thought. Burrows is a bustling conventional High Churchman of the parochial type. Paget is a High Churchman of the more modern type, deeply affected by feminism, & therefore partially shaken out of the "Catholick" groove. Lang is a "man of the world" with a personal piety steeped in sacerdotalism. Williams is reputed a High Churchman with liberal tendencies. Perowne is an "up–to–date" Evangelical: and Temple an "up–to–date" Catholick. I myself am neither "Catholick", nor "Evangelical", nor at any point either frankly conventional or frankly modernist, a whimsical & incomprehensible blend of incompatibles. Strong, who arrives tomorrow, is a 'High Churchman' with wide sympathies but a timid & reluctant conscience. Wild, (who is recruiting in Italy) is moving out of his High Church habitudes into a reasonable liberty. Denton Thompson is but a Protestant wind–bag. There is a brief review of the Northern Episcopate, & it suggests neither courage, nor coherence.

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