The Henson Journals

[118]

Tuesday, February 6th, 1923.

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"The Church of England may be tolerant, but it must be something. I think that the present crisis is more serious than previous ones because it raises that point. The cry, " Why should not congregations do as they like?" really resolves the Church into a large covering of the religious consciousness, not of the nation, but of small bodies of Christian people held together by no principle of cohesion but convenience.

The tolerance which people ask for is the right to do whatever they like, irrespective of the organisation to which they belong. They will not try to get what they want by persuading others of its harmlessness, by agitating, by explaining, by moving in Convocation. They take the right to do what they like, and are aggrieved at the narrow–mindedness of those who distrust them.

Bishop Creighton. August 22nd 1899

v. Life. vol. II p. 376

[119]

Morris, the Vicar of St Oswald's Durham, had an interview with me in my rooms in the Castle. He wanted my direction with respect to his curate Jones. It appears that the Anglo–Catholic convictions of the latter have carried him to extravagances, which have offended members of the congregation, and exhausted the too tolerant patience of the incumbent. The Vicar showed me a voluminous correspondence between himself and the Curate which had passed by a letter from one of the Churchwardens, Laidler, in which he protested against Jones's method of celebrating the Holy Communion. I was astonished at the perverseness and impudence which marked this curate's letters to his chief. He flatly repudiated any subordination, and claimed an equal authority. He certainly acted on his theory of priestly equality. The ignorance, vanity, & positiveness of these letters almost baffle belief. I told Morris that he must give precise instructions: that, if these were obeyed, he must make formal report to me: that I should then summon Jones to a personal interview, and learn what he had to say for himself: that if he persisted in his disobedience, I should authorize Morris to dismiss him with the statutory six months' notice: and that I should consider whether his licence ought not to be revoked.

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