The Henson Journals

[253]

Saturday, November 20th, 1926.

What have I said or done that even in some demented intelligence I should have inspired such expectations as those which inspire the following communication from High Road, Willesden?

"To the Bishop of Durham. Many hundreds of thousands of His people Israel (not Jews) but Britons, are praying that you shall be exalted to be His Witness. The present Archbishop and the socialist Bishops have flirted with the Anti–Christ in the shape of Socialism, Anglo–Catholicism & Roman Catholicism, & he punishes in his own good time in his own way. First, Shepherd of St Martin's & now the Archbishop, both have repeated history & sold their birthrights for a mess of pottage.

May you be a second Latimer, and be true to Israel against his enemies, & you will never know Latimer's martyrdom. It will be to us a sign that God has not deserted us, when he raises you to the see of Canterbury. He will require you to be Master in your own & His house, & put down the shrines at Walsingham & Elsewhere. God is good. May God bless the motive and the writing of this letter."

It is the fact that even now there is a religious underworld in which the crude & sometimes dangerous rhapsodisings of zealots, such as Scott described in "Old Mortality", can still command audience, & even determine action. The combination of Dick Shepherd & the Primate in a single condemnation is curious: & the union of socialism & Anglo–Catholicism is not without significance. But why fasten hopes on me?

[254]

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Beyond writing letters, and reading "large", I did nothing today. In the afternoon I took Ernest for a walk round the Park, and took occasion to have a "heart–to–heart" talk with him on the subject of writing to the newspapers. Last week the "Yorkshire Post" published on its front page a signed article from his pen on the general subject of economics. He had shown it to me, and I had criticised it rather unfavourably, for it lacked (as I thought) clarity & "grasp". But the Editor thought it good enough to publish, and my criticism may have been influenced by my desire to restrain Ernest from journalistic activities while he is living here. For, indeed, my name, which is also his, counts for more than he realises in the minds of editors, & I must carry the burden of his faults. I do not want the impression that Auckland Castle is a fortress of "Capitalism" as against "Labour" to be given to the public, & it will be given assuredly if my chaplain, who is also my relative, acquires a reputation as an anti–Socialist writer. Besides, it cannot be good for him thus to employ himself at the beginning of his clerical career. I am, perhaps, a little disappointed that he should not have seen all this for himself without making it necessary for me to point it out. Oman spoke favourably of Ernest at the Club, but then Oman is at his absurdest in politics, and it is precisely in politics that the two find a point of contact. I could wish that politics and the drama counted for less in his scheme of life, and religion for more. But he is typical of a generation for which "has no use for" theology, and simply cannot understand what is meant by discipline.

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