The Henson Journals

[84]

Friday, December 16th, 1921.

[symbol]

Of all the duties attaching to the Bishop's office none are so difficult & none so important, as those which belong to Ordination. For here his liberty is most untrammeled, and his authority is most complete. He is free to accept, or to reject men, who seek admission to the ministry without appeal. He fixes without interference the tests which shall be imposed as to their intellectual qualifications. He determines whether they are too old, or whether their health is too frail, or whether their reputation is too unsatisfactory. The Ordination candidate is at the Bishop's mercy. Yet on closer view it may appear that even with respect to this question the Bishop's freedom is more apparent than real. For the unconfessed factors which go far to determine his action are extremely powerful, & almost wholly beyond his control. He cannot ignore the quality of the material at his disposal. The Church must be manned, & if inferior men are the only men who seek the ministry, he must make shift with them., whatever his standard may be on paper; in effect it will be mainly what the candidates can reach: & that will be as low as their capacity. Moreover, he cannot easily take his own course without reference to his fellow Bishops, and to the general system which may be established in the church. The tendency will be to sink the standard to the lowest level in any Diocese. It will not be uncommon for a Bishop to be asked to license as assistant curates men, who had been ordained in other dioceses than his own, and whom he would have rejected as wholly inadequate. His integrity leaves him nothing but the comfort of a barren personal self–content. The growth of the Training Colleges, & their highly–emphasized partisan character, have robbed him of all influence in directing the candidates in their beliefs & habits. Between the Bishop and the Ordination candidate there can be no confidence, for that has been already given to the candidate's Father Confessor, or the Head of the Seminary. Even the counsel which at so solemn a moment as Ordination might be offered by a Bishop to his "spiritual son" becomes impossible when the Bishop knows in advance that the "spiritual son" holds him in abhorrence or contempt as a Protestant or a Heretick! The Bishop may have the [85] humiliation of knowing that the men whom he ordains have already determined to break the pledges which he takes from them, & to teach doctrines which he knows to be contrary to the standards of the church, & which he believes to be both false & mischievous. Yet it is practically impossible for him to reject the "Anglo–Catholick" or the "Modernist", although he may see that the one is to all intents & purposes a Papist, and the other an Agnostic.

The "Guardian" contains a 'review" of "Anglicanism" by a writer whom I can hardly doubt is Lacey. He appears to be more concerned with the author than with his work: his unflattering descriptions of the one appear designed rather to hinder than to encourage a reading of the other: and he succeeds in being grossly unfair to both. However, I have to thank him for pointing out 3 trivial but unquestionable inaccuracies. I was at first moved to write to the "Guardian", & point out the uncandid treatment which had been extended to me: but, on second thoughts, I decided that the "review" was beneath my notice. The "Record" had a notice of a more favourable kind, but too thin & unintelligent to be worth anything.

Gow wrote in kindly terms of the book, which he seems to have read. Fawkes writes to tell me that something of the nature of a "heresy hunt" is developing in the diocese of Oxford.

"Major was called upon to answer formal charges of heresy: his answers which he sent in last week, will be considered by the bishop & certain assessors – further proceedings depending on their report."

The "orthodox" have been so humiliated, and are so angry that they can hardly be held back from some violent course, & Major has gone out of his way to be provocative. But Burge ought to have known better than to make himself the instrument of "Anglo–Catholic" bigotry. He must ultimately break with these fanaticks, for he is a man of another spirit, but he may be dragged far in the wrong direction before he recovers his liberty.

Moulsdale, Cruickshank, and Dawson Walker came over from Durham to see the Ordination candidates.

---