The Henson Journals

[56]

Tuesday, May 26th, 1925.

[symbol]

After breakfasting at the Athenaeum, & writing my letters, I walked to Lambeth in order to attend a meeting of the Committee on the Thirty–nine Articles. That business was over by noon, and I walked with Frere to the Church House, & attended the meeting of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission. After lunching at the Athenaeum, I drove with Headlam to Lambeth, and attended the meeting of the Bishops. The Archbishop of York introduced the subject of the Procedure of the House of Bishops in relation to the Revision of the Prayer Book Measure. He moved for the appointment of a Committee, and on this a considerable discussion occurred. I made a speech of some gravity, which did, if I mistake it not, impress my brethren.In it I referred to the renewal of the Conversations at Malines, and asked what must be the ultimate objective which the Abp. of C. must be supposed to contemplate. What could it be but the securing for the C. of E. the status of an Uniat Church subject to the Papacy?It struck me as really significant that the Abp. did not disclaim this. Finally we agreed to a modified form of York's motion, viz. that a Committee should prepare the material for the House of Bishops. I inquired at the Deanery for Ryle, & was told that he was plainly failing.

[57] [symbol]

Jimmie writes to decline my proposal that he should be ordained. "It was so difficult for me to make up my mind on the question of Ordination that the answer was inevitable. I do not want to be ordained. I am disappointed with myself. I know you will be disappointed with me, but I know I am doing right in turning my back on a life which I do not feel I could carry on successfully". This seems to be final.

I had a letter from Gerald Rainbow, who has now made his start at Tunstall School, Sunderland.

Brooke Westcott asked me to be God–father to his son, but I declined as I have made a rule, now that I am more than sixty years old, not to undertake god–parental responsibilities for any more children. Yet I would have been pleased to have a personal link with him. Perhaps there is no weakness of age more pardonable and more fatuous than the love of the young. Pardonable, for youth is eminently, incomparably loveable, but fatuous also, for youth never really cares for the old, and, while it pretends for reasons of its own to do so, passes quickly away. Parents complain bitterly that their children forget them, why, then should other people's children remember?

---