The Henson Journals
Mon 2 December 1929
Volume 49, Pages 2 to 3
[2]
Monday, December 2nd, 1929.
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT
A wet and stormy morning which cast Alexander into a great melancholy, filling his mind with visions of limitless mud from the boots of our visitors this afternoon! The painter ruminates sadly on the miserable light in which his masterpiece must be seen by the company!
In spite of the weather, the subscribers to the portrait mustered in force for the presentation. Lord Londonderry, Lady L., Lillingston, and Sybil, Lady Eden lunched with us before the function. Lord L. made a pleasant speech in presenting the portrait, and I read a reply accepting it. Then old Coroner Graham proposed a vote of thanks to the Lord Lieutenant, & went on in rambling irrelevance for a length of time which only his immense age – he is nearly a century old – enabled us to endure. Then we had tea, & the company dispersed. The general verdict was certainly very favourable, & Mr. Speed received many compliments.
[3]
I received the 'Oxford Diocesan Magazine' for December, which contains the Bishop's address to his Diocesan Conference. He deals with the need for the promised Commission, & states his reasons for refusing to "follow" the Bp of D. in advocating Disestablishment. But he seems to me to misunderstand and, therefore, to minimize unreasonably, the meaning of Establishment. His parallel between a State Hospital and the Established Church appears to me unhelpful, because the salient factor in the last viz: the legal provision for Parliamentary control, has nothing corresponding to it in the first. "Its (i.e. the Church's) function as established, is to present the Christian faith & life within the area of the English Counties, but it cannot take either its faith or worship from the State. The establishment is a method employed in England – alone in the world – for getting some of the religious work done." But, surely, there is also in the Establishment a guarantee that the version of the Christian religion which the Established church presents to the nation shall be that which the Nation approves. If the Church wishes to present another, or a modified, version, & the Nation refuses agreement, what is the Church's duty?