The Henson Journals

[352]

Monday, September 30th, 1929.

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Ella went off to London by the early train in order to attend the weddings of Linetta and Charlie Oman, and to indulge in the 'lust of the eye' in the shops of Babylon!

I wrote to the Bishop of Carlisle suggesting that the first business of the next Bishop's Meeting should be the promised Commission on the Relations of Church & State, & the terms of its reference.

Mr Greener from Pelton came to lunch, and afterwards discussed the situation in that parish. He was very reasonable & considerate, & assured me that, if outsiders would leave well alone, the situation in the parish would probably right itself. But is that condition p likely? I doubt it. He obviously had formed a very mean opinion of the Vicar. He promised me to continue attending the Church, & to have some talk with the said Vicar. Really, it is not the Protestant bigotry of the people that astonishes me, but their amazing patience. Had they tarred and feathered this clerical jackass, who could justly have blamed them?

[353]

"Nor was Popery any longer what it had been. Like Pitt and Burke, the Irish legislators believed that the intellectual & political influences which culminated in the French Revolution were leading to its complete & speedy transformation. Grattan, especially, urged that in the present state of belief, men do not act politically in religious combinations, & that where it appears to be otherwise, it is not the religion, but the disability, which unites them. 'The spirit of the Catholic religion', said Colonel Hutchinson, 'is softened and refined . . . . the power of the Pope is overthrown in France, tottering in Germany, resisted in Italy, and formidable nowhere . . . The Catholics will forget to be bigots as soon as the Protestants shall cease to be persecutors'. 'The power of the Pope', said Grattan, 'is extinct. The sting of the Catholic faith is drawn'. 'If Popery shd go down for 20 years more', said Day, 'as it did the last 20 years, there wd remain little difference between Papists & Protestants but in name'. 'The old dangers of Popery', said Langrishe, 'which used to alarm you, are now to all intents & purposes extinct, & new dangers have arisen in the world against which the Catholics are your best & natural allies'." (Lecky. H. of I. iii. 70)

[354]

These forecasts read oddly in the light of the 150 years which have elapsed since they were uttered. Probably the Pope counts for more in the world today than ever before in some respects, though his secular dominion has shrunk to the size of a country gentleman's domain. The victory of democracy, enthroning the unlettered multitude, has given the Papacy a surer basis of power than the hypocritical & patronizing support of the Catholic Monarchies.

William Slack, the lay–missioner of S. Andrew's, Tudhoe Grange, aspires to Ordination, & came to see me thereupon. He is 23, and has been married for 2 years. He has no child, & no more education than the elementary school at Lynesack could give. But he is sincere, earnest, & devout – so far as one can see. I wrote to his Vicar about him, reserving my decision.

Sir Vincent Baddeley arrived about 4.45 p.m. He told me a rather disconcerting story of his new chief, Alexander, who insists on reversing the just verdict of the late government in the case of the "Establishment men" at the dockyards who "went out" during the General Strike.

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