The Henson Journals

[124]

Thursday, October 18th, 1928.

Meeting of Archdeacons & Rural Deans

A boisterous & rainy day. Ernest & his wife went away after breakfast. I wrote to Watson thanking him for an admirably informing letter on Synods, in reply to some inquiries that I had addressed to him. He belittles the gravity of the present crisis in the church rather astonishingly:– "But crises come and go, & there have been a dozen more memorable, and more formidable that the present within our memory." What can he have in his mind? There have been several acute domestic controversies about "Ritualism", "Liberalism", & Church Schools, but in none of these was there anything analogous to the "head–on" collision between Church and State which has been caused by the rejection of the Revised Prayer Book. He is certainly right in saying that "our trouble is largely due to the unworthy way in which the "Life & Liberty" movement was rushed through to success".

Also I wrote to Radcliffe Cock about the best mode of preparing himself for Ordination. Evidently he has a horror of examinations!

[125]

The Rural Deans arrived at tea–time. Two out of the fourteen were absent – Parry–Evans and Wykes. The first was conducting a Quiet Day at Aldershot: the other pleaded ill health. After tea we sate in conference for more than 2 hours. I was distressed to hear that the C. L. B. was everywhere declining. The reasons assigned for this were 1. unemployment. 2. unpopularity of khaki. 3. increase of alternative interests. 4. lack of officers. At every point the secular parallel presses on, depresses and ultimately destroys the ecclesiastical effort. Thus the cadets are replacing the Church Lads Brigade: the Women's Institute are replacing the Mothers' Union: the social & athletic organisations provided by the greater Employers of Labour are replacing the Clubs provided and managed by the Church: the classes of every kind provided by public authority are replacing the classes which the clergy used to form. In a word, the Church is being 'edged out' of every department of human life, save only the technically religious, & this in a secularized society has no importance. How to handle the situation is a question hard to answer. And yet the Word holds, "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live".

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