The Henson Journals

[220]

Friday, April 11th, 1924.

"The whole conception of an "orthodoxy" indispensable to the security of men's divine relations – a conception which has had a regulative influence through all ecclesiastical history – is an ethical monstrosity, in the presence of which no philosophy of duty is possible, and every moral ideal must be dwarfed or deformed".

Martineau. Seat of Authority in Religion p.157

The land was white with snow when the morning broke, but as the day advanced the snow soon disappeared. And this is the middle of April. In the course of the morning Mr Parry Evans brought Mr Gray's son to see me about the funeral. I vetoed a Sunday function, and agreed that it shd be at 2 p.m. on Monday.

We motored to Easington, where I confirmed 84 candidates in the parish church. The woodwork – pews, screen & pulpit – are excellent, dating from the 17th century: & the church itself is very stately. The parson, West, is a shifty fellow, said to be an ardent Socialist, but none the less obdurate against the suggestion that he should release some part of the endowment, which is £1485 net, with a small house, to the new parish which, it is proposed, should be formed out of Easington, & which wd include 4/5ths of the parishioners! But experience suggests that the interval between theory & practice is in the case of Socialists unusually long!

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