The Henson Journals

[157]

10th Sunday after Trinity, August 24th, 1924.

Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

The Epistle includes S. Paul's description of the all–embracing activity of the Holy Spirit in Christians, and in the Church. "No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost". Only when this governing presence of the Spirit is realized, and the Spirit's guidance obeyed, is the Christian or the Church acting Christianly. Otherwise, even the worst motives may determine Christian action, individual & corporate. The Gospel shows to what lengths this perversion may carry men. "It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves". How often in Christian history might those terrible words of Christ to the Jews, have been addressed with obvious justice to the Hierarchy of Christendom! And the paradox which stains the record of history is present in the private record of individuals. How much alienation of honest men from the Church has its origin in the disgust which they cannot but feel at the cant & cunning which they encounter at close quarters in those who carry on "good works"! Is there on God's earth a more repulsive object than the conventional "Church Worker"?

[158]

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m., and that exhausted my church–going for the day! My presence in the parish church would alarm the officiating curate, & I am so rarely unemployed myself that "total abstinence" is, perhaps, the best policy. Before lunch I wrote letters 1. to George Nimmins 2. to Mrs Lansdell 3. to the Bishop of Bath & Wells 4. to Mr Parry.

The 'Observer' has an interesting account of the great increase of wolves in Southern Italy. This also is a consequence of the War, which for two years withdrew the majority of able–bodied men. It is also stated that the Italian Government is preserving bears.

It is in my judgment unfortunate that so many excellent Christians, especially numerous in the Protestant churches, should have embraced as the objective of their efforts in opposing excessive drinking the total suppression of all consumption of alcoholic beverages. In America this objective has been attained, and we are witnessing the prodigious efforts which the Republic is compelled to make in order to enforce obedience to the Law of Prohibition. What may be the result of those efforts, it is too soon to say, but that the policy of Prohibition is intrinsically unsound none can doubt except those who have persuaded themselves that alcoholic beverages are literally poisonous, & deserve no better handling from a self–respecting community than arsenic & strychnine. That 'abusus non tollit usum' [abuse does not take away use] has been the assumption of [159] Christian moralists from the first, and I certainly am not ready to abandon it. If we aim at making the nation temperate, I think I have good reason for thinking that we shall succeed: but if our aim be to make the people generally total abstainers I am sure that we shall fail, and (if we adopt the violent methods of suppression already sanctioned in America) that we shall deserve to fail. It is apparent that in the long run our real objective will shape our methods. If we think (as I certainly think) with S. Paul that "every creature of God is good, & nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving", we shall seek, not to deprive the people on their rightful freedom but to make sure that its exercise is wholesomely conditioned.

Total abstainers, are in principle Manicheans said Canon Liddon once in my hearing; and he was right in so far as total abstainers proscribe alcoholic beverages as intrinsically evil.

"Thirty years ago a pitman was looked down upon by his mates if he didn't get drunk on Saturday night: now he is looked down upon if he does" – said Bell, the Vicar of Monkheselden to me this afternoon. Public opinion on the subject has completely changed.

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