The Henson Journals

[214]

Friday, November 3rd, 1922.

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A drearily wet day. Lacey had a characteristically impudent letter in the "Times" under the heading "The Use of Monmouth": and, after breakfast, I wrote a brief rejoinder. I lunched with mine hosts, and afterwards motored with them to Cuddesdon, only, however, to find the Bishop absent. We returned to Oxford, where I called on Watson in Christ Church, and had tea with him. Then I left a card on Freddie Macdonald in Oriel, and went back to All Souls, whither I was pursued by Freddie himself.

I dined with Dr Selbie alone in Mansfield, and had a great talk with him about the present situation in the matter of Reunion. My object was to get the Nonconformists to realize that they were being hoodwinked by those wheedling "Anglo–Catholics" into conniving at the process by which the Church of England was being lost to the cause of the Reformation. The adroit tactics which held them to discussions of episcopacy did really invert the true order, & involved an acceptance of the "Catholic" attitude towards polity as a matter of primary concern, which in fact it was not. I think he was impressed, and realized more than before the actual play of forces within the English Church. I returned to All Souls, and talked with mine host and his family. The weather continued wet, but the temperature rose at Eventide.

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