The Henson Journals

[216]

Monday, October 25th, 1926

The Bible clubs have disappeared. Their position was always rather embarrassing, and latterly it had not been found easy to secure men of a satisfactory type. But the maintenance of the chapel services without them is not altogether without difficulty. There is a melancholy suggestiveness about the practical uselessness of the glorious chapel, which attests by its scale & beauty the former supremacy of religion in the college life. The same significant spectacle is witnessed in the undergraduate colleges, wherever (as is now generally the case) attendance has ceased to be compulsory. There seems to be no longer any desire for regular & corporate religious observance. Such religion as lingers among the students finds expression elsewhere than in the College Chapels. The partisan ventures attract some; the parish churches recruit their congregations from undergraduates & married dons; but the corporate religion of the colleges is dead. I am told that the evening sermons to undergraduates in S. Mary's has ceased to attract them: and the University Sermons are wretchedly attended. Is it, then, matter for surprise that the number of Ordination candidates from Oxford steadily diminishes? Keble College, which for its cheapness & the circumstances of its origin, was a principal centre for ordination candidates, is now reported to be in a bad way financially, being recruited from the leavings of other colleges, and having among its students no more than a fraction, who desire to be ordained. This bad situation is not bettered by the unimpressive personnel of the theological professors. It is the case that there is no religious teacher in the University who is a "personality" capable of interesting and influencing the youth. There seems to be no consoling feature in the academic outlook, as it appears to the view of an English Bishop at the present time.

[217]

I was much interested in the aspect, manner, and opinions of young Rouse. If I mistake not, we shall hear of him presently as a personal force in the ranks of "Labour". He professes himself now an ardent member of the "left wing" of the movement: and is hot against any attempt to improve, and by improving to maintain, the existing industrial régime. Nothing but a root–and–branch revolution will satisfy him. And he seems to be a fair sample of a considerable section of young Oxford. He has the look and carriage of a Revolutionary. To men of his age and temperament such a man as Cole may well have a dangerous attractiveness. It seems the strangest folly that the University should actually commission the corrupters of its youth.

I left Oxford by the 10.[0]5 a.m. express, which brought me to Paddington at 11.20 a.m. I drove at once to Lambeth, & joined my brethren in the council chamber at 11.45 a.m. All the Bishops but 3, (London, Liverpool, & Bristol) were present. In the afternoon Pearce brought forward his motion about Fasting Communion, but he could not carry it. I spoke against it, as being unsuitable in itself, & likely to prejudice the whole revision. I was rejected by more than 2 to 1. Then we started on a review of our work. Barnes intervenes from time to time with a modernist protest. He is curiously unpractical and lacking in pastoral sympathy, yet an extremely honest & well–meaning fellow. He told me that he regretted having accepted a Bishoprick. I went to the Athenaeum and wrote letters. Lord Sumner & I dined together, & had much interesting conversation. He was in Paris during the peace negotiations, and gave me a vivacious account of the proceedings.

Snow is reported from the north: here we did not go farther than rain. Parliament met to renew the Emergency Act.

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