The Henson Journals

[143]

Saturday, February 24th, 1923.

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Newman's letter to Ambrose de Lisle (March 3' 1866) on the practical hopelessness of attempts to unite the Churches of England and Rome contains much bitter truth, and, though in the course of the last 57 years, the temper & aspect of the English Church have been wonderfully changed, his words remain substantially true. (v. Life vol II. p. 115–118)

A letter from Harold Cox says that he is 'delighted' with the Edinburgh Article , which, he thinks, 'will not run to more than 19 or 20 pages.' He will ask Longman's to 'publish a few days earlier, i.e. on April 12 or 13, so that the Article may appear before the House of Bishops considers the question (Prayer–book Revision) on April 16 th .' He adds that he 'will send advance copies to the Church papers.' So far, so good.

D r Marie Stopes's action for libel is reported with unusual fullness in the daily papers. The whole question of the public advocacy of contraceptives is being ventilated. I cannot free my mind from the suspicion that sexual intercourse between unmarried adolescents will become as common as kissing when this knowledge is general. What will be the effect on character? What will be the consequence to the Churches? The last people to acquire and apply the knowledge will be those squalid, prolific denizens of the slums in whose interest it is urged that it should be freely distributed.

[144] [symbol]

We dined in the castle with Mr Justice Roache & Mr Commissioner Ratcliffe, their wives, marshals, & one or two others. After the ladies had withdrawn, the conversation turned on the Stopes trial. Both the legal luminaries, while unable to press any objection against Birth control on grounds of moral principle, were hostile to the free dissemination of information on the subject. They felt with me that sexual morality, much strained by many circumstances of modern life, could hardly survive so great an encouragement to self–indulgence as such knowledge would bring to the unmarried. Marriage would be in many cases put out of the question: and the due maintenance of the population could hardly be imperilled. Cox urges that, if the prospect of a family with its charge & anxiety could be removed, young men & women would marry rather than indulge in irregular intercourse. But why should they? If the moral level were low enough to admit of that kind of reasoning, what quality of motive in marriage could be expected? Prevention of conception is a course of action which does surely require extraordinary circumstances to justify its adoption. It could only become a normal condition of married life at a heavy cost to self–respect. The conscious, deliberate, and habitual severance of the sexual act from all connection with the production of children must surely tend towards a lowering of the sexual relation itself.

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