The Henson Journals

[127]

Friday, August 26th, 1921.

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"Looking back on my experience", observed the General at breakfast, "I am led to the conclusion that in your profession only the best and the worst men enter. One thing, however, I must add. The clergy are more improved by their profession than other men by theirs. Schoolmasters and business men seem generally to deteriorate, but men whom one remembers as very poor creatures, strike one as vastly improved when one encounters them as middle–aged clergymen". These are interesting observations, & set one thinking. I have myself formed an unfavourable impression of schoolmasters. Committed by his professional habit to the perpetual iteration of puerile instruction, and necessarily led to adopt therein the authoritative & omniscient tone of the teacher who is also the lawgiver: the schoolmaster carries too often into his treatment of his own contemporaries two exasperating disqualifications – ignorance and haughtiness. This explains the unpopularity, and the frequent failure, of schoolmaster–Bishops. Those of them who succeed have to unlearn the paedagogue's habit, and drop his masterful tone. The reason why the obvious duffer after a few years of clerical life appears to his former comrades so greatly improved may, perhaps, be the fact that Ordination made him for the first time a person whom others treated with consideration & a measure of respect. Elements in his nature which, submerged by his obvious duffership, were unsuspected, had a chance of securing recognition when another aspect had been imposed on him, & he was treated as a normal person. For I judge success to be morally more wholesome than failure, consideration more mentally stimulating than contempt.

[128] [symbol]

After breakfast we were taken to see a distribution of medals by the General. It was a simple but impressive, & even dignified, function. The men – about 650 – were drawn up in a hollow square, the recipients of the medals being ranged in a double line behind the table on which the medals were arranged, and, at which the distribution took place. The general, standing in the middle of the square, made a short speech, & then the distribution was quickly made, while the band played. In pinning on the medals the General addressed a few words to every recipient. Then the men marched off, & dispersed. After this function I was taken round the camp, & introduced to various officers. The working of a gun was explained to me, & I was dismayed at the complexity of the process. It must require a fair level of intelligence, and much steadiness of mind to remember, in the heat & hustle of actual conflict, all that has to be remembered. Dormitories, baths, canteens, recreation rooms – all were visited, & all conveyed the same impression of efficiency & goodwill. It would seem that there is a genuine desire to promote the welfare of the youth who come as recruits into what is really a great public school. But the Millennium faded from my though as I considered the meticulous concern which marked the preparations for war, & the fearful anxiety to utilize to the full the lessons of the last few years. We are evidently treading again the beaten road of the grand fallacy – 'si vis pacem, para bellum' [if you want peace, prepare for war]. Yet what escape from the fallacy can be found? Who could act on the principles of the Pacificists?

[129] [symbol]

Dear Mr Bott

I have always thought it undesirable to offer advice to any man in matters affecting his personal interests or feelings: for the chances are that his mind is really, although perhaps not consciously already made up, and that what he is seeking is not so much advice as approbation. If, however, he follows your advice against his own judgement, & matters turn out ill, he is likely to lay blame on you as the author of his misfortunes. A wise man once counselled me always to distrust a course in wh my own personal interests seemed to be advantaged: & there are those who wd go so far as to say that one ought ever to choose the alternative wh least attracts one. These opinions seem to me almost paradoxical. I wd rather say to a clergyman something of this kind:– Do not seek preferment, & do not lightly reject it. Be very careful not to order your own course in the matter of spiritual appointments, but do not shrink from even formidable tasks if, apart from your own action, direct or indirect, they are proposed to you. We are "soldiers on service", & we must go where we are sent: &, when we have the consciousness of mission, we know that we have the assurance of His enabling grace, Who has sent us. We must not run the risk of evoking from our own consciences the suggestion that we sent ourselves, & have no covenant security of sufficient help.

I will certainly pray that God's Spirit may direct you in making a decision which must needs be difficult.

Believe me, Sincerely yours,

Herbert Dunelm:

The above is a copy of a letter which I sent to Mr Bott, Vicar of St John's, Stockton–on Tees, who had asked my advice about a projected exchange of livings.

[130] [symbol]

After lunch the General took me to see a polo match between two brigades, and, on returning to the house, I had tea, & settled down to write letters. The post brought another interesting letter from Fawkes on the subject of this unhappy Cambridge conference. I begin to think that it might be right (it certainly will be expected) that I should use the opportunity of preaching at the Church Congress to define my attitude on the Christological issue. But to do this effectively in public implies that I have first done it honestly in private. What is my answer to the primary & ultimately decisive question, What think ye of Christ? If I accepted Rashdall's view, could I, in any intelligible sense of the word 'worship' Christ? Sooner or later that issue must be faced. Could I find a better opportunity for facing it than that which the inbecile folly of these coxcombs of Cambridge have provided?

After dinner our conversation turned to Mesopotamia. The General professed himself opposed to abandoning it, and said that he dreaded our discovering too late that we had thrown away a valuable possession. Java, Cuba, Minorca, Madagascar – there was a long list of admittedly precious territories which we had conquered, and then surrendered. The politicians had lost what the soldiers had won. Would not Mesopotamia, if, in deference to the natural but really irrational cry for economy, we now retired from it, provide an addition to the melancholy list? If we could but tide over the next 10 years, the country would support itself.

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