The Henson Journals

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21st Sunday after Trinity, October 28th, 1928.

A beautiful morning, calm & bright. A 'Sabbath rest' on all the land, disclosed rather than disturbed by the cawing of the rooks, & an occasional cock crowing.

Before getting up, I finished reading the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress. Undoubtedly it falls off badly at the end. The long colloquy with Ignorance is very tiresome. It is, indeed, a theological tract, & suggests rather notes & headings for sermons than a work of imagination. The workmanship is poor & the substance uninteresting. Besides, the theology is entirely obsolete, & rather repulsive to the modern mind. Probably it was the secret of the book's popularity in the XVIIth century, but now it is superfluous & unhelpful. The humour, insight, & imaginative actuality of the earlier part of the bo ok are independent of the secular conditions and make the work immortal, one of the world's spiritual classics.

I celebrated the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. in the Chapel. We numbered 9 communicants, including Partridge and John.

Ian Stott, Mrs. Berry's nephew, went with me to St. Cuthbert's, Darlington, where I preached to a church–full of Freemasons from the words; "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

[144]

Some see a similarity in the present situation to that of Christianity in the early ages. There is none. The little groups of Christians in the Roman Empire were the advance guards of a conquering host, the diminishing & separated groups of Christians in our modern civilization are the broken fragments of a defeated army. It is this which leads people to talk about Christianity being at the cross–roads.

H.D.A. Major. Sermon at Cambridge, Sept. 23rd 1928.

On Jany 29th 1928 I preached in Cambridge the Sermon which Burkitt in the Times called 'notorious'. There I said precisely what Major denies:

The Church of Christ is taking again the character with respect to the general life of Christendom which it bore in the first ages with respect to the imperial world. Then its doctrine & discipline ran so plainly counter to the prevailing fashion, that Christians drew down upon themselves the weight of public odium & official hostility. How far will history repeat itself? We cannot tell, nor need we know.

"The Book & the Vote. p. 20

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I read through Temple's tract, "The Genius of the Church of England" which has just been published by 'The Press & Publications Board of the Church Assembly'. It is very rhetorical, indeed almost ecstatic, but its relation to history is slight, and its bearing on the present situation imperceptible. It is an elaboration of the thesis of the immortal Trimmer.

"That our climate is a Trimmer between that part of the world where men are roasted, & the other where they are frozen; that our church is a Trimmer between the frenzy of fanatic visions and the lethargic ignorance of Popish dreams; that our laws are Trimmers between the excesses of unbounded power & the extravagance of liberty not enough restrained; that true virtue hath ever been thought a Trimmer, & to have its dwelling in the middle between the two extremes; that even God Almighty Himself is divided between His two great attributes, His mercy & His justice. In such company, our Trimmer is not ashamed of his name, & willingly leaveth to the bold champions of either extreme, the honour of contending with no less adversaries than nature, religion, liberty, prudence, humanity and common sense."

(v. Halifax's 'works' ed. Foxcroft ii. 342)

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