The Henson Journals

[176]

Wednesday, September 22nd, 1926.

["]A brief, and sufficiently accurate, description of the intellectual life of the European races during the succeeding two centuries and a quarter up to our own times is that they have been living upon the accumulated capital of ideas provided for them by the genius of the XVIIth century. The men of this epoch inherited a ferment of ideas attendant upon the historical revolt of the XVIth century, & they bequeathed formed systems of thought touching every aspect of human life. It is the one century which consistently, & throughout the whole range of human ideas, provided intellectual genious adequate for the greatness of its occasions.["]

v. Whitehead. "Science & the Modern World". p. 57.

Another beautiful day. The great storm of Monday morning was limited to the North of England, & apparently reached its climax in Berwick where 2.15 inches of rain are reported to have fallen. In America a tremendous disaster happened in Florida with great loss of life.

After an early lunch we motored to Newcastle, where I celebrate[d] the marriage of Gladys Taylor, my kind little night–nurse, to a doctor, Norman [space]. There was a considerable congregation, which included the matron & some of the nurses from the Nursing Home. Mr Pigg, the Vicar of S. Peter's, assisted. I gave a short address. The church, a great, gaunt, gloomy building, might well be pulled down, for the population has almost disappeared, & most of the surviving parishioners are Papists.

Caröe arrived after visiting Escombe. He reports that the work is proceeding satisfactorily, but the walls are full of mud, & the building has been kept up by the large stones at the angles.

Laws made a start on a new flower–border in the drive. He is ever ready, perhaps too ready, to begin: his difficulty is to maintain. But therein he is but the replica of his employer. I also am a poet to the extent of our fine opening line, but after that – !

[177]

Dr Carnegie Simpson, the new Moderator of the Federal Council of the Evangelical Free Churches of England, made a notable speech on a subject announced as "After the Lambeth Joint Conferences". He emphasized the importance of the declaration from the Anglican side that the Free Church ministries were to be recognized as "true ministries of Christ's Word & Sacraments in the Universal Church", which he described as "the most notable thing which Lambeth had said to any non–episcopal Church since the time of, say, Bancroft or Laud". He went on to explain the circumstances in which the Conferences were broken off: –

"The stage at which it was felt on both sides that the conferences should be suspended was when the Anglican representatives (or the majority of them) intimated that there must be insistence on episcopal re–ordination at least in the form known as sub condicione, and the Free Church representatives (or the majority of them) intimated that that seemed in view of the declaration, inappropriate & unreasonable, & that they could hold out no prospects of its being accepted. It was there they felt they had gone as far as they could. Different persons would put different interpretations upon the situation. To him it meant that "while episcopacy may be essential to union, an episcopacy which insists on re–ordination is fatal to union".

Finally, he discussed the probable courses of the future, & decided that "the next steps are going to be taken by means of what he might call these "family re–unions" of Churches nearest to each other. Already in Scotland & Canada considerable advance had been made on these lines. Lambeth by "inviting union all round was in real danger of failing to achieve union anywhere". (v. Times, Sept. 21st.) There is much truth in all this, but there was more politeness than sincerity in his compliments to the Lambeth Appeal! It was from the first an impossible programme.

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