The Henson Journals

[176]

9th Sunday after Trinity, August 5th, 1928.

A brilliant summer's morning, windless and with unclouded sky. We went to the parish church, a modern building with no merits save those of spaciousness & good acoustics, and received the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. Braley celebrated reverently and without self–consciousness. There were about a dozen communicants.

We attended Mattins, & heard a sermon from Braley from Psalm 121.1. "I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help." The sermon was interesting, suggestive, & well–delivered, but did not gain in form or in effect by the too–numerous quotations. Wordsworth, Blake, Plato, Kant, Wilkes, Goethe, Spencer, Otto, Meredith, and others were named, & (more or less accurately) quoted. Thus the mind was diverted & distracted without being assisted. It is a common fault of modern preachers to smother their message (when they have one, which is by no means commonly the case) in illustrations, not always well chosen and too often taken at second hand. Braley has a clear, pleasant voice, a good appearance in the pulpit and a taking manner. These are qualities which go far to redeem many homiletic faults.

[177] [symbol]

"All I hope to do is to reproduce faithfully the mental attitude of the great theological age of which S. Thomas Aquinas is the king" – in these words Dom Anscan Vomien O.S.B indicates the character and the fatal weakness of his book, which Lord Halifax sent to me & begged me to read. "A Key to the doctrine of the Eucharist. The mental attitude of the XIIIth century is hardly capable of reproduction in the XXth outside cloisters & madhouses. Could S. Thomas have thought as he did about theology apart from thinking in terms of his own age on all other matters? And since it is clearly impossible for us to adopt the last, can we really adopt the first? We may make the words of the Summa our own, but can we guarantee to them the old senses? The reasoning may be close and accurate, but the premisses are impossible. It is, perhaps, the distinctive vice of the Roman divines – a direct legacy from the scholastics – to offer closeness of reasoning as an alternative to justification of premisses. There never was an age more addicted to exact & formal argumentation than the XIIIth century, and none with more acceptance of assumptions which are demonstrably false. The scholastics are obsolete not for lack of clear & courageous thinking, but for lack of the requisites of sound thinking.

[178]

The afternoon became sultry, & I was heavy as lead. Mrs Mangin came to tea as well as Braley & his wife. After they had departed I read an interesting book given to me by Frank Pember – " The last years of the Frontier, a History of the Borders during the reign of Elizabeth" by D.L.W. Tough. B. Litt. M.A. Oxford, 1928.' Chapter III deals with 'The Religion of the Borderers'. It is evident that the Reformation was ill presented and ill received. Bishop Barnes in 1578 devised a fairly thorough plan of action, but it came to nothing for lack of competent persons to carry it through.

"The sacrament was to be administered at least once a month, all over fourteen being obliged to partake of it thrice a year, and a catechismal test was imposed on communicants, godparents, and would–be brides & bridegrooms." A yearly examination was to be held in Lent, & the clergy were to teach children weekly & report those parents who would not send them."

But then, as now, the efforts of the Bishops were brought to nought by the fewness and inadequacy of the clergy. Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? was an inevitable comment on the Elizabethan Church.