The Henson Journals

[2]

Friday, October 14th, 1921.

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The weather continues to be mild and brilliant. I spent the morning in preparing a sermon for the Freemasons. After lunch I walked in the Park for an hour, & then returned to the sermon and finished it. The Church Papers give little notice of my Congress Sermon, which, however, the "Guardian" prints. The "Church Times", perhaps rightly, gives primary places to Gore's speech at the E.C.U. meeting. "I for myself deliberately demand disestablishment." This declaration was received with 'loud applause'. Thus Gore crosses the Rubicon, and fulfils my often repeated prediction that he would head a movement for Disestablishment. He had succeded in binding on the Church in advance of the catastrophe an organization which secures the dominance of "Catholick" principles, & now from his point of view the sooner the crisis arrives the better. He emphasizes the Crown nomination of the bishops as decisively condemning the Establishment. "I think the position under which our bishops are appointed becomes increasingly intolerable". This means, of course, that recent appointments are not to his liking. Had they been so, he would have found the system tolerable enough. It is odd that at the same time Gore from his point of view, and I from mine, should have arrived at the same conclusion viz. that the Establishment can no longer be maintained, and that both of us should feel constrained to publish our conviction. For that in effect, so far as I am concerned will be the effect of my Swedish Lectures, which are announced to appear 'immediately'. What the effect of Disestablisht on my personal fortunes will be it is hard to say. Certainly I find it difficult to imagine myself holding office as a merely denominational officer. That the historical incidents, which give interest and dignity to the position of the Bishop of Durham would disappear may be taken for granted. Auckland Castle, probably, would be taken over by the Durham County Council! Caröe arrived from one of his professional tours, and stayed the night.

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