The Henson Journals

[338]

Monday, January 24th, 1927.

["]The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.["]

Lord Acton

["]Until societies are tried by the complex problems of civilisation they may escape despotism, as societies that are undisturbed by religious diversity avoid persecution.["]

Lord Acton

["]The point on which the ancients were most nearly unanimous is the right of the people to govern, and their inability to govern alone. To meet this difficulty, to give to the popular element a full share without a monopoly of power, they adopted very generally the theory of a mixed Constitution. They differed from our notion of the same thing, because modern Constitutions have been a device for limiting monarchy: with them they were invented to curb democracy. . . . ["]

["]But whereas a sovereign prince who surrenders part of his authority yields to the argument of superior force, a sovereign people relinquishing its own prerogative succumbs to the influence of reason. And it has at all times proved more easy to create limitations by the use of force than by persuasion. . . . The experiment has been tried more often than I can tell, with a combination of resources that were unknown to the ancients – with Christianity, parliamentary government, and a free press. Yet there is no example of such a balanced Constitution having lasted a century["].

Lord Action, in 1877. Hist. of Freedom Other Essays.

[339]

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A thaw set in yesterday and continued during the night, with the consequence that most of the snow had disappeared. The day was wet and blustering.

Lord Thurlow, who preached yesterday in York Minster, came to see me just as I was setting out for the dentist.

In the afternoon I motored to Durham, and presided at a meeting of the Church Building Society, where £400 was voted towards the temporary Church in the new district of Bishopwearmouth. I promised another £50 to the Escombe Repair Fund.

Ella and Fearne returned from Scotland by the afternoon train.

An anonymous correspondent sends me a newspaper cutting from the Nelson Evening Mail, which I suppose is a New Zealand paper. It is headed "A Bishop's Insult", and consists of a vehement protest against some words spoken by me in Durham Cathedral when I preached to the Missionary Association. I had suggested that the "avid, arrogant secularism", "the passion for money–making and the appetite for frivolous self–indulgence" which often mark colonial society were largely attributable to the failure of the Church of England effectually to Christianise the emigrants. But there are no people so thin–skinned as colonials and Americans. They can only be kept good–humoured by doses of extravagant compliment. Criticism censure are resented as outrageous!

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