The Henson Journals

[155]

16th Sunday after Trinity, September 11th, 1921.

This is the Birthday of two good women who were very kind to me many years ago, and have now been dead a long time – my aunt and my sister. Heaven rest their souls! I never grieved more over anyone's death than I did over my sister's in the spring of 1896.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the chapel at 8 a.m. Ella, Miss Mundella, Ernest, Alexander, James & Mrs Berry communicated with me. The thought came powerfully upon me that Rashdall's theory about Christ could not possibly go along with the Holy Communion. Unless in one's own intimate experience Jesus Christ be verily Divine, so Divine that no other attitude towards Him than that of worship is possible, how could any man celebrate the Holy Communion? S. Paul's prayer in this day's Epistle could not have come from any one but a Christ–worshipper in the fullest sense of the word – "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith: that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, & length, & depth, & height: & to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God". The problem is how to state this conviction of Christ's plenary Divineness in terms which are intelligible to the modern mind, and consistent with modern knowledge. For it is not possible to simply repeat S. Paul's language without translating it into modern speech. Is it enough to say that S. Paul was a "mystic", and that au fond all mystics believe the same, that is, no "mystics" really believe anything?

[156]

I stayed in my study all day, save for a walk in the Park with Ernest in the afternoon, and occupied myself with the tiresome but important matter of correcting the proofs of the Swedish Lectures. The doubt grows in my mind. (1) whether they will have any circulation at all, (2) if they do, whether the effect will be good or not. It will be said by some, & thought by more that, now the 'National Assembly' is actually in being, there can be no advantage in criticising the policy of its creation: that, as I was myself a member of the Lambeth Conference, there is a certain indecency in my viewing its work from so detached & unsympathetic a stand point: that, however just my reading of anglican history may be, there is not the smallest probability that the governing tendencies of the present will be arrested, or moderated by it: that the only possible consequences of reminding the public of these facts will be to stimulate discord, & evoke resentment. There is much truth in all this. On the other hand, as the Lectures were delivered, I might seem required in honour to make them public in England, & to defend them there: the functions of the "National Assembly" are yet in the process of being shaped, & a serious review of the whole situation might have some influence thereon: the "anglo–catholic" movement is yet in its first enthusiasm, & some honest criticism might assist many churchmen to understand its character: finally, the "Lambeth Conference" has reached a point in its development, at which a clearer perception of its assumptions & tendencies is greatly to be desired. Therefore, on the whole, balancing one set of considerations against the other, I reach the conclusion that it is right to publish these Lectures.

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