The Henson Journals

[347]

2nd Sunday after Trinity, June 13th, 1926.

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A beautifully fine day. I sate in the garden for three hours in the afternoon, & rejoiced in the singing of the birds, & the fresh verdure of the trees. The noise of the motor–cycles on the Durham road – a waxing nuisance – was the only thing that tended to spoil my enjoyment. I wrote to George Adam Smith telling him that the "Summer School for Clergy", which he had promised to address, had been cancelled for lack of support, and that we should be absent from home during July.

I finished Houtin's Autobiography. The last chapter, "Mon troisieme Inventaìre" is melancholy reading. He worked out to a total disbelief in Christianity, and gave up wearing his soutane, on April 24th 1912. The Roman Catholic System knows nothing of middle courses. A man must either accept the Infallible System, or abandon religion altogether. There are no recognized & reasonable distinctions between essentials & non–essentials: No "open questions" are tolerable or tolerated. No Roman Catholic would ever say with Lightfood that he was not troubled at having to leave a thousand questions open, provided he was secure on two or three main lines. "Now we see in a mirror darkly" is the modest confession of S. Paul.

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