The Henson Journals

[160]

5th Sunday after Epiphany, February 10th, 1924.

O Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion: that they who do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by thy mighty power: through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

The "Observer" reports Rashdall's death. When I last saw him, in November, I formed the opinion that he had not long to live. His death is another reminder that the sand is running out in my hour–glass also. My acquaintance with him ranges over a period of about 40 years. His courage and independence attracted me, and I respected his great learning. He was a very tactless person, and in public action I was rarely able to work with him: nor did he, in my opinion possess much power of discrimination. He fought with equal ardour for essentials and trivialities. I believe him to have been sincerely religious, and very resolute in carrying his religion into his life. What position he held as a philosopher among philosophers, as a moralist among moralists, or as a medievalist among medievalists, I do not know, but in every case I should judge that it was considerable. For his industry was unflagging: his learning wide: and his candour admirable. Religiously he was a sentimental Rationalist.

[161]

I read the Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1923 by A. E. J. Rawlinson of Christ Church, "Authority and Freedom". It is well–written, interesting, and extremely sophistical. The main purpose is to magnify the "Anglo–Catholic" movement, and to give his American audience the impression that it is the most amazing & powerful element in English Religion. Inge has an effective and very damaging review of the volume in the "Guardian". "To those who are not carried away by the ideal of institutional reunion, the aspiration seems to belong to cloudland. It is like praying for the restoration of the undivided Roman Empire: indeed, the two ideas are, historically, very closely connected". In his description of the situation in England, as he thinks it ought to be, he sets forth very naively the picture of what is called in the "Spectator" a "Go–as–you–please" Church. It never seems to occur to this writer that the Church of England itself has any authority over its own members, or that the toleration of contradictory teaching is not a synthesis of truth, or that union in the future can hardly grow out of conflicting methods in the present, or that vows of obedience are not simply cancelled by one's dislike of their obligation. But in all this he is only a typical product of the movement he champions, & I doubt not his book will be widely read.

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