The Henson Journals

[134]

Monday, October 22nd, 1928.

The importance of religion is sufficiently shown by its history, by its present influence on the world, & by its strange power over ourselves. The ground of the tenacious hold which Religion maintains over human minds is the fact that certain vital and impossible questions confront us to which it, & it alone offers satisfying answers i.e. satisfying to those who accept it. The only alternatives to the Religious Answer are offered by the degrading indifferentism of mere Secularism, and by the austere Agnosticism of Science. The achievements of Religion compel respect. Even its enormous armies have their origin in a pessimistic sincerity. Lucretius's "Tantum religio potuit suadere maloram" was suggested by an example of sacrifice, & in sacrifice the finest qualities of human action find expression. "The time cometh when he that killeth you doth think that he doeth God service". The tragic ills which flow from the depravation of Religion are themselves witnesses to its power. However, Religion itself proposes a problem which cannot be ignored. Only the validity of its primary assumption can explain its existence. Religion belongs to the essential constituents of human nature. Hence its much emphasized & much misunderstood association with sex. Both leap to consciousness at adolescence.

[135]

I left Manchester after breakfast, and returned to Auckland Castle, which I reached about 2.30 p.m. being met at Darlington by Lionel with the car.

Immediately after a belated lunch, I set to work on the letters. Then Morris Young called. He is convalescent. I gave him 9 months leave of absence from November 1st. After he had gone, I corrected proofs for the Bishoprick, and had an interview with an Ordination candidate named Frank Bishop. He is a man of 25, who was bred a Baptist, and originally designed to follow his father's trade of a clothier. But the chaplain at his school – Brighton College – induced him to be baptized & confirmed, and when, after leaving school, he fell under "catholic" influences, he soon was led to believe himself "called" to the ministry. He impressed me as sincere, devout, and intelligent, but by no means strong, physically or mentally. However appearances are often delusive. Some of the bet clergymen I know are in external appearance the feeblest of mankind. So we must not be unduly impressed by the poor aspect of the candidate for Ordination.

Mrs Gow arrived during my absence – large, cryptic, authoritative & omniscient as of old – a rather terrifying example of the "valuable woman"!

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