The Henson Journals

[248]

Saturday, August 10th, 1929.

Hudson Barker writes to inform me that "some of our laymen (C.A.Captains) are taking Funerals & Holy Baptism (both private & public". [sic]

I wrote to him as follows:–

"It is unknown to me that laymen are taking Funerals & Holy Baptism: and, if the practice is actually taking root, it is a very grave matter indeed. I have never granted permission to any Incumbent thus to delegate his primary duties, and I hope you will make clear to anybody who consults you on the subject that such delegation is altogether unauthorized. The subject cannot be dealt with in the holiday season, nor is it a matter for merely diocesan handling."

I have no doubt that the clergy, in their frenzied eagerness to get off on holidays, do in too many cases count on the probability of my never coming to know the lawless procedures by which they make possible their absence from their parishes.

[249]

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What all see is, that while Mr Bell Cox goes to prison for having lighted candles, and mixed water with the wine, and refusing to give up such things, dignified clergy of the Church can make open questions of the personality of God, and the fact of the Resurrection, and the promise of immortality.

[Dean Church to the Abp. of Canterbury. 26th May 1887. Life & Letters. P.324.]

This is still the situation, and it paralyzes episcopal efforts to restrain the "Ritualists". 'Deal with Barnes, Charles, & Major, and then we will listen to you' – that is the protest of all our Romanizers, and the difficulty of meeting it arises from the fact, that the liberty to repudiate the doctrinal standards, which is exercized with reckless parade by our modernists is to some extent necessarily exercized by us all. There is a difference between doctrine and ceremony which makes it really absurd to apply the same kind of discipline to both. But, of course, the difference may be ignored.

[250]

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The day has been fine, but with an atmosphere so sultry that I found it quite impossible to do any useful work. I walked round the Park with the dogs in the course of the afternoon. Major Wills from Catterick came to say Goodbye. He is leaving the district and the Army.

Then Mr Harold Speed re–appeared on the scene, and with him the certainty that a quiet life & all effective work vanished for the duration of his visit! I received a request from an ex–service man, Mr Wm Hart, for permission to destroy rabbits in the Park, but this, after consulting Ashton, I refused. Such a permission might too easily open the door to formidable developments.

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The "Manchester Guardian" publishes two communications significantly placing them together. The one is headed, "The U.S. National "Dishonour". Huge increase in Crime". The other, "Millions for new U.S. Churches. Reflection of National Prosperity". I fear that organised Christianity in the U.S.A. is quite apparently divorced from morality.

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