The Henson Journals

[12]

Tuesday, August 1st, 1922.

"The Reformation of the Church of England was effected without any violent break with the past because the Catholic organisation of the Church remained, and the necessary doctrinal and disciplinary changes were made within the system of the Church".

I noticed this statement in an interesting article on 'Religion in Czecho–Slovakia by the Revd J. B. Seaton, Principal of Cuddesdon, which has 'the place of honour' in the new issue of "The Church Quarterly Review". It illustrates the strength of the "Anglo–Catholic" obsession in clerical minds. If the Church of England as it is now presented in the "Catholic parishes, & habitually described by the "Catholic" clergy, were indeed a true representative of the Reformed Church, as it emerged from the Reformation, and as it still appears in it formularies & standards, the statement might serve well enough to state the facts. In reality it is a grotesque travesty of the history. What could be properly descried as "a violent breach with the past", if not the destruction of monasticism, the abolition of the Mass, the suppression of almost the whole fabric of popular religion (relics, pilgrimages, images, tc.) the repudiation of the Papacy, the establishment of the Royal Supremacy, & the permission of clerical matrimony? Was there no violence in the Pilgrimage of Grace, the rebellion of the Devonshire men, the Marian persecution, the deprivation & imprisonment of the episcopate by Elizabeth, & the Revolt of the Northern Earls?

[13]

Apparently there is in process a brisk attempt "to establish a Church which will be Catholic in character and progressive in spirit". The Principal of Cuddesdon observes, 'One is inevitably reminded of the Enabling Act and the resulting measures and organization in our own Church'!! The parallel is closer than he perceives or intends To create within the Established Church of England a self–governing "Catholic" Church, such as the advocates of the Enabling Act design is hardly less revolutionary than the attempt to which "the Czecho–Slovak Church" is committed.

That quaint astronomer–parson, Espin of Tow Law, sends me a paper which he has contributed to the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada on "Dark Structures in the Milky Way": and the Bishop of Manchester sends me his article 'of–printed' from Mind on "Symbolism as a Metaphysical Principle". Both papers abashed me with a sharp & painful consciousness of my intellectual limitations. I acknowledged their arrival to their respective donors in notes whose facetiousness hardly veiled the writer's humiliation. It is, indeed, horrible thus suddenly to realize that there are great tracts of intellectual activity which are for one's self a terra incognita.

I played bowls with William after lunch, and was badly beaten. I sent a cheque for £20 to the Vicar as my contribution to the parochial funds this year, and promised to repeat it yearly on January 1st.

Ernest arrived from Sedburgh. He seems cheerful, and successful in his work.

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