The Henson Journals

[207]

Saturday, November 18th, 1927.

We discussed the probable handling of the Crown Patronage by a Labour Prime Minister, & we agreed that it could hardly be anything but humiliating, and even disastrous to the Church. Hugh Macmillan adduced on the other side his experience as Lord Advocate of Scotland in Ramsay Macdonald's Government. In giving him a free hand in the matter of the large legal patronage which belongs to the Lord Advocate, Macdonald had only stipulated that he should ignore party qualifications & appoint solely on merit. This is well enough, but if the Crown Patronage in the Church were administered on that principle, there would be no cause for complaint: but the cases are not really parallel, for there is nothing in the Legal World corresponding to the Socialist–Communist faction in the Ecclesiastical. If the Labour clergy were appointed to Bishopricks, Deaneries, and Canonries, one should be subjected to the domination of ignorant fanaticks, half–crazy with class–hatred, and full–filled with vanity by their new importance. This is hardly an excessive description of Donaldson, whom Macdonald appointed to a canonry at the Abbey. His wild & irresponsible language has been a public nuisance ever since his appointment: but his conceit is boundless. The Labour Clergy, apart from their politics are not commonly qualified for high office.

[208]

Lord Danesfort said to me incidentally in the Library of the House of Lords, 'Of course, if York goes to Canterbury, I suppose you will go to York'. And Lord Scarbrough yesterday said, 'I take it as certain that you will be asked to go to York'. It seems certain that the idea of such an appointment is being canvassed: &, it would be affectation to regard it as altogether unreasonable. If Lang goes to Canterbury, which I assume to be fairly certain: his Chair must be filled up: and (if the Bishop of London be excluded) the Bishop of Durham stands next in the hierarchy. Of course, appointment by seniority is neither an accepted nor a common basis of ecclesiastical appointment. There is, I conjecture, a fairly well–established rule of translating to the Primacies: & a general desire to multiply the opportunities for administering patronage. My nomination to York wd vacate Durham, which is itself generally filled by translation. If Headlam were brought to Durham, another Bishoprick would be vacated: so that no less than four appointments would have to be made as a consequence of the vacancy at Canterbury. But it is nowise certain, and, indeed, can hardly be said to be probable, that even if York were proposed to me, I should feel free to accept it. For Durham is in too bad a way.

[209]

Lord Scarbrough went off by the 10 a.m. train, and I by the Pullman express at 11.20 a.m. I occupied the first two hours of the journey by reading a small book which I bought at the railway–book–stall. "Concerning Man's origin by Sir Arthur Keith". It is the Presidential Address at the British Association with some additional pieces. I was struck by some observations in the Foreword, in which he criticises what he calls "Daytorian Darwinists".

"They believe, as followers of Charles Darwin do, that man has been evolved from a lower form: they are indifferent as to the kind of animal selected as an ancestor. They hold the belief that when man's evolution had proceeded some way a miracle occurred, and something that no ape had ever had was suddenly grafted in the evolving human brain".

His own position, which he proposes as that of all scientific men is thus stated:–

"All the evidence at our disposal supports the conclusion that the biological factors which raised the anthropoid brain from that of a lower ape were also those which ultimately transformed all anthropoid brain into man's master–organ".

He speaks appreciatively of the reception which his words received from "the leaders of religious thought". But, can any Christian place Jesus Christ simply in the line of natural evolution?