The Henson Journals

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Wednesday, October 19th, 1921.

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I received a substantial pamphlet, "The Starvelings, A Study in Clerical Poverty" by F. I. Hammond, Vicar of All Hallows, Hoo, Kent, with an Introduction by Maurice Hewlett. The substance of it is a vigorous plea for a more reasonable treatment of the endowments with the object of improving the incomes of the rural clergy, & increasing their personal comfort: but it is written in an exstatic [sic] vein, as if it were proclaiming the spiritual necessity of a Franciscan poverty!

Rashdall and his wife arrived about 6 p.m. He gladly accepted a proposal to walk before dinner. We talked about the Cambridge Controversy, of which he is evidently full. I have no doubt that he has been abominably abused, but he is less orthodox than he thinks, & more provocative than he suspects.

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October 19th, 1921.

My dear Caröe,

I have to thank you for sending me the Report of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee, which I have read very carefully. The "principle" on which it is based requires a good deal of elucidation before it can be accepted as the basis of legislation. It may be true that "the Nation has an interest in monuments apart from, and in some respects superior to, the interest of the owner", and yet it may not properly follow that this interest of the nation is such that it can be fitly or rightly expressed in terms of interference & control.

Certainly, the rights of owners are being treated very cavalierly when it is proposed that the State shall push its claim within the walls of their houses, & determine what structural changes may, or may not, be made. It is but a step, and a short one, from this to giving the State the power to decide whether an owner may, or may not, reside in his ancestral home.

The case of the ecclesiastical buildings is not quite the same: but I cannot quickly or readily accept a view which extends the State's authority from its proper task of seeing that the Trustees (i.e. the ecclesiastical corporations sole and aggregate) fulfil their functions properly, to the actual taking over of those functions.

I shall examine very closely any proposals which may come before Parliament, & be ready to do my best to oppose any extension of State Architectural Control over the Cathedrals and Churches.

It was pleasant to see you even for a brief glimpse.

Yours aff.

Herbert Dunelm:

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"The convulsions of our English Church itself, grievous as they are, seem to be as nothing beside the dangers of its calm & unobtrusive alienation in thought & spirit from the great silent multitude of Englishmen, & again of alienation from fact & love of fact: – mutual alienations both."

Hort to Benson, St Stephen's Day, 1882.

Nearly 40 years have passed since the great Cambridge scholar wrote these words. The process which he discerned has now worked to an almost total severance of the Nation from the National Church.

I had more talk with Rashdall after dinner. He spoke very strongly against Lake's position. "Lake has really come to hate Jesus" he said. This terrible statement does not seem to me to be excessive. He said that a section of the Anglo–Catholic Conference held with Bishop Blougram that orthodoxy was necessary for the public, but spoke among themselves of the "Christian mythology". Of this section, the leader was Hoskyns, son of the Bishop of Southwell. We discussed Burkitt's position. He said that Burkitt had been a strong advocate of the Apocalyptic theory of the Gospel. I heard with some alarm that Rashdall had been invited to address the Dissenters in Newcastle on the subject of the Cambridge Conference, & that he was disposed to accept the invitation. I advised him strongly to hold his peace, and put his views into a volume.

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