The Henson Journals

[53]

New Year's Day 1930.

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A fair day but deteriorating at nightfall. I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. We numbered 12 communicants including Mr & Mrs Elland, Mrs Smith, and John. I spent the morning in writing letters, save for half an hour which I wasted in getting rid, as civilly as I could, of an advocate of Sunday Observance, who brought a letter of introduction from the Dean. In the afternoon I walked round the Park with the dogs.

A horrible catastrophe in Paisley where no less than 69 children were trampled to death or choked in a stampede caused by an alarm of fire in a cinema hall gave melancholy interest to the newspapers. In the Manchester Guardian, 'Artifex', who is understood to be Canon Peter Green, has an article headed, "The Anglican Communion in the New Year", in which he makes a very flattering reference to my "Letter" in the Bishoprick, and throws out the interesting suggestion that the bishops should 'permit properly qualified laymen to assist at the [54] [symbol] administration of Holy Communion.' In point of principle, I apprehend, there can be no objection to such employment of laymen: but the conditions, under which laymen could be so employed without risk of gross undiscipline [sic], are apparently hard to determine. [symbol] In the C. of E. we have always to reckon with a profound divergence of doctrine and habit in regard to the Holy Communion: and, (a circumstance of great importance in this connexion,) with a very bad tradition in the matter of obedience to the Bishop. Who is to hinder the lazy "Evangelical" – there are plenty of them – from allowing any layman (or, even lay–woman) to administer? Who is to restrain the ardent young Romanizing "Server" from ceremonial extravagances which may even out–pace the folly of his priest? The clergy are bound by the oath of canonical obedience & Ordination vows, but the lay volunteer is not. Experience certainly shows that the lay–workers are not reluctant to 'magnify their office', and they are largely men who have been reared under Nonconformist traditions, which are not very severe in excluding lay–folk from the "consecration" of the Lord's Supper. The suggestion needs careful weighing.

[55]

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Sir Lewis Dibden, acknowledging my gift of "The Kingdom of God", writes rather interestingly thus:–

"I think what you say in the last sermon about 'The Way' wd have been warmly agreed to by the best Englishmen in the 16th century. To them the Christianity of England was one thing, the society for ordaining, confirming, & excommunicating called the Church of England was another thing – not in the least inimical, in fact the latter a department inside the former. This is heresy, but true & the only road to union goes that way!"

It does not appear to me heresy, so much as nonsense. As a version of the history of the English Reformation, it is, of course, absurd. Why was every Englishman & English woman, above the age of 16, required, under penalty, to communicate at Easter? Was it not precisely because such an unreal distinction as Sir Lewis imagines, never entered the minds of English–folk in the 16th century? Moreover, what conceivable "union" can be built on so gross a paradox as he projects viz. a Church of England which ordains, confirms, and excommunicates, which yet does not express the Christianity of England?

[56]

Geoffrey Dawson writes:–

My dear Henson,

I am overwhelmed by the admirable reproduction of your portrait & by your letter. The latter increases my permanent regret that Providence has made you a Bishop instead of a leader–writer on the staff of 'The Times', where the beauty of your calligraphy would have captivated the compositors, & the precision of your English the Editor!

I am glad you thought we did the Castle reasonably well: it is hard work playing fair by these multitudinous & most deserving appeals. (I cannot, for instance, resist the true journalistic instinct which has suggested to Lady Titchfield the capitalization of the Delhi bomb as a plea for Edward's new Church!)

Do come & see us when you visit London, & escape for an hour from the discussions of your quarrelsome colleagues. I detest Barnes's assumption of superior knowledge, but I cannot help thinking that Truro is out of place as a partisan [sic] patron in another diocese.

Yours Ever

G. D.

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