The Henson Journals

[268]

Thursday, December 2nd, 1926.

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["]It is always hazardous to argue from the character of a corporation to the character of the members who compose it, but in no other case is this method of judgment so fallacious as in the history of ecclesiastics, for there is no other class whose distinctive excellencies are less apparent, & whose mental & moral defects are more glaringly conspicuous in corporate action.["]

Lecky. Hist: of Eur: Morals. i. 152.

I read all morning, not very usefully. Then Robin came to lunch, and a walk in the Park. He is growing stouter since his accident, & seems to be getting keen on politics. He certainly has powers, & if he can acquire stability of character, he might "make good", & gain an honourable name. But the world is [a] difficult place for such a man as he, so born & placed. His visit to America seems to have impressed him greatly, & he thinks Henry Ford the most wonderful man in the world. I was rather surprised to see him driving a motor. His accident might well have disgusted him with driving for the rest of his life. But youth has limitless recuperative power. After Robin had gone, I returned to my reading, until dinner–time.

Captain Jocelyn, private secretary to Mr J. S. Wardlaw–Milne M. P., wrote to me with respect to the Bill which is to give autonomy to the Church in India. He desired materials for priming his chief for opposing the Bill in the House of Commons as an Anglo–Catholic measure. I wrote to him declining to associate myself with any opposition to the Bill. Nothing will induce me to throw in my lot with the arid & venomous partisanship which decorates itself with the Protestant name. Incidentally he tells me that "the supporters of the Anglo–Catholic Movement are stronger & better equipped than the Evangelicals" in the House of Commons. This may well be the case since the latter are led by Sir Thomas Inskip and the former by Lord Hugh Cecil.

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