The Henson Journals

[370]

Monday, October 7th, 1929.

I remained in bed until the afternoon, & then got up and wrote letters.

The Rev. W. Parker Wilton, Vicar of Thornley, came to see me. He wishes to "get off" his obligation to pay the pension to old Humphreys, his predecessor. I was rather rough with him, & told him that it was no question of his paying anything, but rather of his stealing another man's property. I gave him tea, & sent him away crestfallen & unhelped!

Haigh sends me a private note telling me that I had done wisely in staying away from the Reunion Function in Edinburgh: that the Archbishop of C. himself had been treated with less consideration than he might fairly have anticipated & that the Church of England was plainly regarded with less sympathy than might have been expected. I remember hearing from the Bp. of N. that the Scots would have preferred the late to the present Primate as a representative of 'the sister Church': but that Lord D. with his usual consideration had insisted on their asking his Successor, coming himself on the 2nd day's function.

[371]

Origin of Tithe–

By 2 & 3. Edw: 6, c. 13 s. 5.

"All such barren heath or waste ground which shall now be or hereafter shall be improved or converted into arable ground or meadow, shall, after the end term of seven years next after such improvement fully ended & determined, pay tithe for the corn & hay growing upon the same."

Tithes & rent charges may be exchanged for land under statute of Will. 4. & Victoria.

Salmon at Durham

A fresh–water salmon measuring fully 2½ feet was taken from the river at about 50 yards below Framwellgate Staiths. The fish was found to be in a very exhausted condition having apparently been struck in an attempt to make its way up the river to the spawning bed.

[372]

"I do not say, that a greater freedom of action than she now has, for purposes consistent with faithfulness to her principles, might not be desirable for the Church of England… Whatever difficulty there may be in removing impediments to her free action, in any beneficial direction, by reason of the necessity for Parliamentary concurrence in changes of her law, that difficulty is on the side of the State: and this, as long as the Church can with a clear conscience acquiesce in it, constitutes no reason for disestablishment."

Ld Selborne. "A Defence" p.296

So the ardent Anglican wrote in 1886: would he maintain, in 1929, that 'the Church can with a clean conscience acquiesce' in the rejection of the Revised Prayer Book? I cannot think so, especially in view of the successive extensions of the Suffrage.

"It seems to the writer difficult to exaggerate the benefit which the Church has obtained from this recognition (by the Enabling Act) of its corporate existence and rights, & this demolition of the Erastian theory that the Houses of Parliament, composed of Churchmen, and Non–Churchmen, Christians and Non–Christians, nevertheless represent the laity of the Church, or the benefits which the Church should obtain from the facilities thereby given of legislation calculated to reform existing abuses and to adapt her machinery and organisation to present & future needs."

Lord Phillimore. Preface to the Book of Church Law. 1921.

[struck through]I doubt my Lord Phillimore's satisfaction when I quote these words, as I hope to do, in the assembly. "This demolition of the Erastian theory" is an excellent phrase. If my memory does not betray me, his Lordship had gone back on this view of the Houses of Parliament [end].

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