The Henson Journals

[89]

Friday, January 24th, 1930.

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Ella and I motored into Durham, and lunched with Captain Morley, the chief constable, and his wife. Colonel Ruthven and his wife were there. It was a pleasant party. We returned to Auckland, where I resumed work on the Westminster Sermon. It is a woeful performance, & doesn't succeed in saying what I want to say!

Barnes is determined to make the way of reconciliation as difficult as possible. The Times reports a speech of his at a meeting of 'Modern Churchmen' in Birmingham. It is headed, 'Modernist Doctrine: Bishop of Birmingham on the Divinity of Jesus':–

"They followed Rashdall the great philosopher of the Modernist doctrine Movement, in his doctrine of Jesus, human & divine. But they also said that the story of the Virgin birth could not be used to prove the divinity of Christ. The insects were remotely akin to ourselves. Among them virgin–births were common. Yet none wd pretend that such births implied divinity. Their belief in the divinity of Jesus rested upon the fact that His moral & spiritual splendour lifted Him above humanity."

The reference to the insects is equally irrelevant & offensive.

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