The Henson Journals

[184]

Good Friday, March 29th, 1929.

Before getting up I read through again the "self–analysis and life–review" with which Baxter concludes the first part of his Autobiography, considering the while how far I could adopt his conclusions as my own, now that I too have reached an age in which reminiscence, & inferences therefrom, are natural, if useless, employments. I cannot conceal from myself that the back–ground of thinking has changed. How could I seriously say that the determining factor in my approach to the people is the question "presently (i.e. immediately) to be determined whether they shall dwell for ever in heaven or in hell"? What he says about the effect of congruous living our belief is, I think, certainly true. Conduct does create the difficulties of Faith. "And therefore ungodly persons have a great disadvantage in their resisting temptations to unbelief." I am not sure that I can find any personal counterpart to his increased absorption in "frequent and [185] serious meditation on the heavenly blessedness", a subject which, I think, never engages my thought. His judgment that "a man is no more a Christian than he is heavenly" carries little to my mind. But his consciousness of widening areas of agnosticism is wholly intelligible. I could endorse the following:–

["]But now I find far greater darkness upon all things, and perceive how very little it is that we know in comparison of that which we are ignorant of, and have far meaner thoughts of my own understanding, though I must needs know that it is better furnished than it was then.["]

His increasing dislike of controversies I share to the full, and his growing disposition to "see more good and more evil in all men than heretofore I did", also his disposition to think meanly of "gifts of utterance and base profession of religion".

[186]

I can find nothing in myself that corresponds to his growing concern for the spiritual state of the heathen, nor does their interest enter largely into my prayers as it did into his. "No part of my prayers are so deeply serious as that for the conversion of the infidel & ungodly world." And I share neither his desire to preach the gospel to "Tartarians, Turks, & heathens", not his high esteem for missionaries. I endorse the following, and emphasize it:–

"Yet am I not so much inclined to pass a peremptory sentence of damnation upon all that never heard of Christ, having some more reason than I knew of before to think that God's dealing with such is much unknown to us, and that the ungodly here among us Christians are in a far worse case than they."

[187]

His increased tolerance in matters of religious differences, his desire for reunion, and his deepening consciousness that honest Christians must needs have a bad time in such a world as this command my agreement. And I can wholly endorse his profession:–

"I am more and more pleased with a solitary life: and though in a way of self–denial I could submit to the most public life for the service of God when he requireth it, & would not be unprofitable that I might be private, yet I must confess it is much more pleasing to myself to be retired from the world and to have very little to do with men, and to converse with God and conscience and good books."

But in my case the "good books" would not be exclusively, or mainly, theological!

[188]

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The question of football matches on Good Friday has again been raised in the newspapers, and, of course, the contentions on the one side and the other are as vehement & unconvincing as ever. There is no conjuring away the crude and cruel fact that, for the majority of the people, the Day now carries no religious significance. For the Dissenters its character is that of a Festival rather than of a Fast: and even among Anglicans the social convention which governs religious procedure is not exacting. If the legal holiday was severed from the Christian Fast, the observance of Good Friday would soon approximate in extent & severity to that which now belongs to Ash Wednesday. The new intensity of the appetite for enjoyment, which is noticeable in all classes since the War, and the vast improvement in the means of transport, are certainly adding greatly to the normal distaste of the requirement of the Church: and so rapid has been the enfeeblement of religious factors within the community that the Christian Tradition is quite apparently tending to "peter out".

[189]

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I think also that the "Modernists" have quietly destroyed in many educated minds the pre–suppositions of Good Friday Observance. It is hardly possible to discuss the question, whether Jesus ever existed at all, whether He did not come to His Death by the way of disappointed Marianism, whether He was Himself in any essential respect superior to the conditions of His own age & race, and the like – all of which are admitted as questions reasonable in themselves and to be answered without regard to the declarations of the Creed – and feel any such solemn & conscience–piercing concern in the Crucifixion as alone could create a genuine desire to observe with penitent devotions the day of its annual Commemoration. Thus the weakening concern of the considering Few combines with the secularist ardour of the unreflecting Many to destroy the Tradition of Good Friday observance.

[190]

I wrote to William, & dealt with such letters as came by the one Good Friday post. The new "Hibbert Journal" contained several articles of interest, which I read with interest. One by Claud Montefiore on "The attempted Conversion of the Jews" was particularly relevant to the day on which we pray for "Jews, Turks, infidels, & hereticks". It is certainly effective. He makes much of the diversity of versions in which Christ's Religion is presented, not easily reconciled with one another, & in some approximating so closely to Judaism as to be scarcely distinguishable from it.

Lionel drove me into Durham, where I had some talk with the Bishop of Jarrow about some diocesan matters. He inclines more decisively to Modernism than I wholly approve. It would be embarrassing if the diocesan became orthodox precisely when his suffragan became heretical!

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