The Henson Journals

[83]

Tuesday, May 2nd, 1922.

I wrote to Lord Cave saying that I would come to the meeting of the Committee on May 24th, and then would introduce my Scheme for the Cathedral. Also, I suggested that the Dean & Chapter should be invited to make representation of their views thereupon.

Ella and I travelled to Durham, and attended a meeting of the Preventive & Rescue Assn. Then we lunched together in my rooms at the Castle. Afterwards, Ella went her way, and I settled down to a series of interviews, of varying interest and importance.

[X. was a clergyman who, 11 years ago, seduced a girl of 18 in the parish in which he was serving as curate; & now desired to be restored to the number of licensed clergy in the diocese. He told me his history, and his circumstances. He had been originally a pit–boy, working in the mines at the age of 12 years. He was one of 6 children, who lived with their parents in a cottage with two bedrooms. All the children, 3 boys and 3 girls, shared the same bedroom up to past 11 years of age. He attributed his fall to the low moral standard printed on him from childhood. In the pits the smaller boys were corrupted by the older. Self–abuse was general, the older lads generally, & sometimes forcibly teaching the vice to the younger. Thus he carried into the ministry a low standard & a depraved habit, which (he now thinks) facilitated his fall. But all this sets one thinking about the prudence of ordaining pitmen].

[84]

Mr Teape wished permission to resign his living. I conceded his request with alacrity. Old Mr Firth came to beg that I would induce the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to raise the income of his benefice to £500 yearly! Then a young man named Dobson came to see me about his Ordination. I promised to accept him as a candidate on the understanding that he would promise to work in the diocese of Durham as soon as his academic period had run out.

I travelled to York by the 5.20 p.m. train, and went to Bishopthorpe. We had some rather interesting talk in the smoking room about the crisis in the Church Missionary Society. It appears that there is strong likelihood that the Society will break up. The old fanatical Evangelicals are determined to purge it of the leaven of liberalism, which is working in the younger men. The Bishops of Chelmsford, Liverpool, and Truro are labouring to avoid a schism. But it is questionable whether they are well advised in seeking to prolong a thoroughly unreal state of affairs. "New wine must be put into fresh wine skins." There can be no doubt as to the newness of this wine of theological Liberalism: and none as to the oldness of the Evangelical wine–skins. The alternative is to empty, or to burst, the skins: nether prospect is attractive; & both are rather wasteful. It would be better to pour the new wine into fresh wine–skins, & thus preserve it.

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