The Henson Journals

[217]

7th Sunday after Trinity, July 31st, 1927.

Sunday in a great country house is becoming not a little embarrassing, at least for a Bishop, who cannot but be regarded as embodying the Christian claim, but who finds himself in a milieu which frankly ignores it. The temptation is strong just to accept the situation, and conform to whatever the arrangements may be. Yet the Bishop's behaviour will be watched, and inferences will be drawn from it. Even if the host & hostess with their other guests understand that the complaisance is polite and reluctant, who can be sure that as much is understood by the servants? There was no service in the private chapel. Ella and I attended the morning service at a neighbouring church: and in the afternoon accompanied our host to Newtownards, where he unveiled a memorial window presented by the Mayor in memory of the men from the parish who fell in the war. The Bishop of Down dedicated the window, and preached the sermon. We all returned to Mountsteward after the service.

[218]

Princess Helena Victoria is staying here, and makes herself very agreeable. She told me at lunch that she and her sister were known in the Royal Family as 'the Dodos', on account of their resolute conservatism! The other guests are an American, Mr Ray Atherton, Mr Sam Campbell, the heir of the Duke of Argyll, Mr Ed: Sanderson, Colonel Hankey, Hon. Neill Chaplin, and one or two others, whom I can't identify.

Sanderson talked very interestingly & evidently with considerable personal knowledge of the situation in Ireland. He is confident that the Free State is heading for bankruptcy: has the meanest opinion of Cosgrave: thinks that all the F.S. Ministers will probably be assassinated: and doubts the permanence of the Free State. The Celtic Irish are in his view savages. Their horrible cruelty & wanton love of destruction prove their savagery. He says that the process of Romanizing Ulster proceeds so rapidly that, within a no distant date, the whole population will have become Papist!

[219]

I started to read the book which K.C. Bayley lent me – Les États–Unis d'aujourd'hui, par André Siegfried. Librairie Armand Colin. Paris 1927. It is extremely interesting, & abounds in acute and illuminating judgments.

"Luther advises the Christian to descend into the arena in order to serve the State there with his body, but he does not require him to make his soul descend there also: a significant reservation which does not permit the believer to play without reticence with this world's advantages & possessions. With Calvin religion and practical life are united for the first time since the ancient City. In the honourable exercise of his earthly profession the believer works for God, and so much the more as he succeeds better. In every age we have seen the Catholick Church ally itself with wealth, but it has never boasted of the alliance as a dignity: in its eyes the poor man ever preserves his nobleness, & perhaps is the nearer God for his poverty. The Puritan honours himself for [220] being rich: if he entrenches himself in enjoyments (bénéfices) he loves to tell himself that it is Providence which sends them to him: his wealth even becomes in his eyes as in the eyes of others a visible sign of Divine approbation. He reaches the point of no more knowing when he acts by duty and when by interest: he no longer even wishes to know, for he accustoms himself to explain by his sense of duty even those of his acts which serve his interest best. At this point, his lack of psychological penetration, voluntary or not, lowers him below hypocrisy itself. This same confusion, which one hardly knows to be clever or simple, is found among nearly all English Protestants. Under these conditions it becomes difficult to distinguish religious aspiration from the pursuit of wealth." (p. 35)

There is a bitter truth in all this, though some ignorance and much injustice also. Prosperity and Christianity go ill together.

[221]

His distribution of the religious denominations is interesting:–

Les anglicans sont les gens chics de vieille richesse acquise, les méthodistes, des commerçants aisés dont Dieu a bien voulu "benir" les affaires, les baptistes, des petites gens sans prestige, vivant dans les campagnes et les villes de troisième ordre, les presbyteriens et les congregationalistes, des descendants de la Nouvelle Angleterre intellectuelle d'il y a cinquante ans, les luthériens, des Allemands méfiants e timorés, les quakers, des bourgeois solides à la conscience scrupuleuse assis sur des sacs d'or, les catholiques enfin, des étrangers, des aliens, appartenant à ces races "inferieuses" que le pharisaïsme anglo–saxon dédaigne.

"Solid city–folk with a scrupulous conscience sitting on bags of gold" – this is a 'far cry' from George Fox and William Penn's "No cross, no crown": but it is not an unfair description of the modern Quakers – smug, prosperous, self–righteous, & supercilious folk but too often.

[222]

The two girls – Helen and Margaret – are growing into attractive maidens, and promise in due course to be beautiful women. They are said to be very intelligent, and certainly are vivacious & attractive. Margaret sate beside me at dinner, & we talked together.

After dinner Lord Londonderry played the piano. He is a variously accomplished man. We discussed possible successors to Mr Baldwin, & agreed that Chamberlain was weak & stupid, Churchill strong and reckless: & that on the whole the latter would be best for the country. Lord L. said that Churchill was a 'great ally' of his own, and 'always backed' him. The Princess amused herself with "cross–word" puzzles. So we traversed the concluding hours of the Lord's Day. There was once a time when the minds of Christian people were interested in theology, so that the discussion of religious questions was as welcome as it was suitable: but now the one subject which is taboo is theology, & a subject equally suitable for Sunday treatment is not easily found.

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