The Henson Journals

[122]

Friday, January 11th, 1924.

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It seems to me that there are two systems in the Church of England, which are vitally opposed, and which if equally developed could not subsist together in the same place.

Gladstone to Pusey. December 7th 1846

So long as both systems accepted the conditions of "Establishment" recognizing the spiritual autonomy of the Nation, and endorsing the national "settlement" of Religion, the discord did not parelyze [sic] the Church's discipline, or destroy its identity: but now that the "Establishment" itself is repudiated by one of the rivals, the whole system has been brought to a deadlock. So long, of course, as the nation is content to tolerate a situation of anarchy, in which every clergyman does what he thinks right in his own eyes, the Church of England will maintain a nominal existence. As a "go–as–you–please Church" it can dispense with principles, ignore standards, and despise consistency. But if it should happen that the public patience should fail under the strain, and the public conscience revolt against the moral paradox implicit in such a state of affairs, there would be a quick ending of a Church which in any coherent or tolerable sense had ceased to justify its name and claim. Disruption might open a new & worthier chapter of Anglican history.

[123] [symbol]

The bitter wintry weather continues. I devoted the day to writing the article on "Reunion" for the "Nineteenth Century and after", & managed to finish it, but not at all to my own contentment. In the afternoon I walked round the Park with Ernest and the dogs.

Conybeare, the Armenian scholar, is reported to have died at the age of 67. I remember him well at Oxford during the years 1884–7. His passionate advocacy of justice in the case of the unhappy Dreyfus made a great impression on me.

A telegram from Sir Alfred Palmer informed me that the woeful cleric had paid back in full the money he had stolen. I sent the welcome news to Knight without delay. What explanation of this clergyman's downfall is so probable as that he was tempted of the devil? He pleads no sudden pressure of poverty. There was the opportunity, and the evil suggestion, and then the surrender. In cases of sensual sin, there is always "the plausible casuistry of the passions" to be reckoned with, but in the vulgar crime of stealing there is nothing to relieve the disgust which it provokes. My own behaviour, as bishop, leaves me very discontented. How does it differ from that of the medieval ecclesiastics who insisted on making a difference between clergyman and layman in the manner of their treatment as criminals? "Salvo ordine meo" [without prejudicing my order] is not a defensible formula in this age of the world, yet what other will really serve my turn now?

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