The Henson Journals

[22]

Thursday, July 1st, 1926.

["]Without the least intention to offend the clergy, I cannot but think, that through a mistaken notion and practice, they prevent themselves from doing much service, which otherwise might lie in their power, to Religion and Virtue: I mean, by affecting so much to converse with each other, & caring so little to mingle with the laity. They have their particular Clubs, & particular Coffee–houses, where they generally appear in clusters . . . . . Now, I take this behaviour of the Clergy to be just as reasonable, as if the Physicians should agree to spend their time in visiting one another, or their several apothecaries, & leave their patients to shift for themselves. In my humble opinion, the Clergy's business lies entirely among the laity; neither is there, perhaps, a more effectual way to forward the salvation of men's souls, than for spiritual persons to make themselves as agreeable as they can in the conversations of the World, for which a learned education gives them great advantage, if they would please to improve and apply it.["]

Swift. "A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners. 1709.

Compare with this the exhortation of the Bishop in the Ordering of Priests. The two pronouncements are not easily harmonized.

[23]

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Cruickshank brought with him Sir Arthur Hort, who has been examining in Durham. A tall, good–looking, middle–aged man of agreeable manners, and bearing a strong facial resemblance to his distinguished father. He said that he was on some kind of a Committee charged to carry into effect the measure for dividing the Bishoprick of Winchester. There is a suggestion now under consideration for utilizing Farnham Castle for the southern dioceses generally. How much simpler and satisfactory it would have been to preserve the famous diocese, & provide for a sufficient devolution of duty to the suffragans! But this fatuous lust for more bishops and no suffragans carries all before it! Sir Arthur Hort told us some amusing Things about Winston Churchill's school–days at Harrow. Even then he exhibited signs of unusual literary ability. He was credited with the authorship of most of the essays from his house. On one occasion he was appealed to for aid by a disconsolate boy charged to produce an essay on Poetry. Winston at once began to dictate – "Poetry is the gilt on the gingerbread of life". Admiration for his outstanding ability seems always to have gone along with distrust of his character, and dislike of his person.

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