The Henson Journals

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Wednesday, April 6th, 1921.

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"Many excellent persons, because they cannot make a noise with chapter & verse, and harangue it twice a day to factious tradesmen & ignorant old women, are esteemed as of nothing, and scarce thought worthy to eat the church's bread."

South A.D. 1692

The contempt with which preaching has been, and still is, regarded by the "High" church party dates from the Restoration. There is something piquant in the spectacle of a great preacher pouring scorn on preaching, but, of course, South would have repudiated any fellowship with the Puritan preachers, whom he was girding at. They were very commonly illiterate enthusiasts whose extemporaneous effusions did more credit to their lungs than to their understanding. Moreover, the restored Royalist clergy were hardly ever able to preach tolerably in any manner, & in too many cases they were dull, worldly men, embittered by their privations, & long parted from the habits & sentiments of pastoral ministry. There is small cause for wonder in the unquestionable fact that these men did not compare well with their ejected predecessors, most of whom were personally unconnected with the policy which had evicted the episcopalian incumbents, and were seen to be conscientious men ready to suffer loss for their religious convictions. As preachers they appealed successfully to the congregations, but they expressed an obsolete theology, and held unpopular political opinions.

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Philosophers who are also reformers are led by their ardour to overestimate the beneficial effects of a change, because they forget that the faults they denounce, being rooted in human weakness, may emerge afresh in other forms. Struck by the evils they see, they neglect those from which they have not suffered. One must always discount the sanguine radicalism of a thinker, who, like Mazzini, lived beneath the shadow of a despotism, and the conservatism, or austerity, of one who lived, like Plato, amidst the hustle & din of a democracy.

Lord Bryce in 1921

I could not resist the temptation of buying Bryce's new book on 'Modern Democracies', though the price, 50/–, is monstrous. It is a most vigorous & thought–provoking work. When it is remembered that the author was born as long ago as May 10th 1838 the book is seen to be a very remarkable achievement.

I worked at the sermon for next Sunday: and, after lunch, walked with Clayton. The miners are sitting about on the roadsides, or strolling about with rather a 'hang–dog' aspect. There is no general desire for the strike in this district, and when the men find that they have nothing but their Union pay to live on, there will be less. The debate in the House of Commons last night did not absolutely close the door: and the other members of the 'Triple Alliance' have yet to declare themselves.

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