The Henson Journals
Mon 19 August 1929
Volume 48, Pages 266 to 267
[266]
Monday, August 19th, 1929.
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I was a wreck with a chill, & could do nothing save sit for awhile to the painter, dictate a few letters, and read the papers.
The 'Modern Churchman' is very confident. "There is no possible doubt that the great majority of serious–minded, ethical, and thoughtful Englishmen are behind Dr Barnes." This is interesting. The adjectives are rather curious. "Serious–minded, ethical, & thoughtful" are terms which may be applied to the honest Agnostic as suitably as to the honest Christian. When Barnes dogmatizes about Sacraments, he deals with a subject which has no meaning outside the society of Believers: & since he speaks as a Bishop of the Church of England, he must have in view the members of that Church. Would the Bishops be excluded from the number of 'serious–minded, ethical, and thoughtful men'? I doubt if there is one Bishop who would accept Barnes as his spokesman. The tone of the 'Modern Churchman' proves more & more offensive, & un–Christian. It assumes that there is no such thing as a Church, or Divinely–instituted Sacraments, or a Moral Law.
[267]
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This affectation of certitude is undoubtedly effective with the half–educated. Yet it is really quite absurd, for, at best, it can be but the impression of the individual who makes the statement: & its importance will be wholly measured by the opportunity which that individual has for knowing the facts, and the personal weight attached to his opinion. Judged in this way, the dogmatising of the 'Modern Churchman' is silly enough.
Yesterday I wrote to William: today I have written to George.
Mr J. A. Hildgard, Horsley, Eastgate sent us a present of grouse.
"Finally there emerges the idea of a single universal God who, thanks it seems to the Mitani, that alas all too little known people who lived in the south–east of the great Hittite Empire, was conceived of as an ethical being." (Burkitt in the M. C.)
I never heard of the Mitani before, but on turneḓing̭ up the reference in the Cambridge Ancient History, I found a good deal of rather vague information, based, of course, on the flimsiest foundations.