The Henson Journals

[342]

Thursday, June 10th, 1926.

Heavy rain last night, & a dull morning. Mr Cullagh came to see me. He says this precious bandage & lying–in–bed must go on for another 10 days.

Fisher Unwin sends me "A Short History of Christianity" by Albert Houtin, translated by Lady Frazer. It is, of course, brilliant & suggestive, as anything written by a clever Frenchman is bound to be, but it is even slighter & more misleading than even so very small a book on so very great a subject is bound to be. He starts by assuming the truth of the destructive criticism which denies to the 4 Gospels any substantial historicity, and he ends with the gloomiest forecast of the future of Christianity. The real & considerable influence of Christianity is entirely ignored, & only the scandalous record of the ecclesiastical element is emphasized. This little book might work havoc in half–educated minds, & will, I suspect, be largely used for that purpose. Its principal value is the light it throws on the Modernist position. If "Liberal Churchmen" are moving towards such a view of historic Christianity as Houtin here describes, it is evident that they can have no permanent place within the Christian Ministry. And, indeed, it is difficult to blame the Roman Catholic authorities for treating those who profess "Modernism" of Houtin's type as properly unfit for clerical office. Fawkes always speaks of Houtin with great respect and regard.

[343]

I was sufficiently interested in Houtin to start forthwith on his autobiography which was included in my parcel of French books. "Une Vie de Pretre, mon expérience 1867–1912". He is four years younger than I, so that we may fairly be described as contemporaries. His description of the change which has taken place in his ancestral village between his boyhood and the present time might be spoken mutatis mutandis of many an English Village. Then the people were still catholic, and on Sunday everybody went to Mass. Now nobody makes any difference between Sunday & weekday: only old women & young girls attend mass: the boys have deserted the catechising. The curé's parishioners only claim his services for marriage, baptism, and burial. And yet the morality of the people seems to have improved. There is much less drunkenness & quarrelling now than then. All this has a very familiar sound. The decline in authority & consequence of the French priests is certainly paralleled by that of the English parsons.

The weather having become wet and stormy I did not venture into the garden, but was carried into my study where I lay on the sofa for 3 hours, & was visited by the Bishop of Jarrow, who had taken my place at the dedication of the new organ which has been placed in the Chapel of the County Prison in Durham.

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