The Henson Journals

[185]

Friday, February 25th, 1921.

"He that is a good man is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called."

South

The post brought me a rather vehemently worded letter from Mrs Paget, the wife of the Bishop of Chester. I replied as follows:–

My dear Mrs Paget

Thank you for your letter. You must make an effort (if only by way of Lenten discipline) to believe that so far from my personal attitude on what is compendiously called 'the Feminist movement' being dictated by any belittlement of the Female sex, it is in my own consciousness determined by a profound reverence for Woman, & a conviction that her best interests are not served by those who now most confidently claim to represent her interests.

In these parts Christianity lacks virility, and, I fear, perhaps wrongly, that the Ordination of Women will not tend to correct the mischief. Nor do I think it will be permanently possible to set a hedge about the diaconate, & say "Thus far & no farther" to women who claim admission to the higher ministries of the Church on the same grounds of vocation and ability which have been allowed to be adequate in the case of the diaconate.

[186]

Be sure that I have nothing but admiration for the zeal and devotion of good women, & I admit that they put the selfish coldness of many men to shame. But what would you have? God has made the human race in two sexes, not in one. I cannot think it unreasonable, or unfair to think that they may have divergent rôles in the economy of life, & that the divergence may be fairly thought to emerge at the point of Holy Orders.

Finally, all the available evidence goes to show that in this respect also I am what the Americans call "a back number". The medieval fiction of a female Pope may yet turn out to have been a prophecy!

With kind regards to the Bishop,

Believe me, most sincerely yours,

Herbert Dunelm:

I spent the morning in composing an address to the Diocesan Conference, which meets tomorrow. The Rev. S. H. Fullerton, Chaplain of the Tyne Seamen's Institute, lunched here. He had pressed for an interview, ostensibly in the interest of his work, really that he might beg for a living! Maish wrote to indicate his acceptance of Belmont, which, however, will not be vacant before Easter. After lunch I walked in the Park for an hour, the fineness of the day cheating one with the semblance of spring, though there are yet two months of ill repute to be traversed.

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