The Henson Journals

[186]

Friday, August 1st, 1930.

Headlam was in charge of the business of most of the morning, and had an easy course. The only opposition came from the Bishop of Ripon, who is not well–liked by the Conference. He is polemical, garrulous, and humourless. The Bishops were in no mood for a réchaffé of the of the Prayer Book controversy. So the Orthodox Churches came to harbour very easily, & Headlam was loudly cheered. It was in my opinion a notable personal triumph, which he had honestly earned. Then the Archbishop of York brought forward the resolutions dealing with the South Indian Scheme. These passed with hardly a shadow of dissent, & when the decisive vote had been unanimously favourable, the Conference allowed itself to indulge in some complimentary speeches. The President called for silent prayer, and after an interval read some collects. Then somebody started the Doxology which was sung with feeling & fervour. How precarious this position is was however disclosed by the brisk opposition offered to a mild resolution [187] which gave a tiny measure of recognition to the not infrequent practice of liberal–minded Anglicans viz. receiving the Holy Communion in the churches of the non–episcopalians when they had access to none of their own. However, this resolution was finally adopted by a large majority.

Before the meeting of the Conference, the South Indian Scheme had been the subject of vehement controversy. A polemical literature of considerable extent was produced: and many alarming prophecies of disruption were made. Much credit for the successful piloting of the scheme through the Conference is due to the Indian Bishops, and much to the skill, good temper, & resonance of the Chairman of the Committee, Abp. Temple. He has gained great popularity in the process, and will emerge from the Conference with greatly enhanced reputation. Bishop Palmer has done well. His valorous efforts to get the better of his woeful stutter, and his evident devotion to his cause did much to commend his arguments.

[188]

I have found one American Bishop to whom I am really attracted. He is the 'baby' of the American Bench, & is only 39 years old. A tall well–knit man, more than six feet, clean–shaven, with an athletic & martial carriage. It does not surprize one to hear that he served in the War, & was promoted to the rank of Major. I had some talk with him, and got from him his address:–

The Right Revd Henry W. Hobson

233 West 7th Street

Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.

He is the Bishop of South Ohio.

I asked him about Judge Lindsey's books: and he said, as the other Bishops say, that they are misleading as being based on the Judge's experience of his Court, where he necessarily saw the worst aspects of society. I pointed out that the actual facts adduced are of such a character as to indicate an appallingly large extent of corruption. We spoke of the divorce–statistics, which, he admitted were monstrous: but he insisted [189] that in the great majority of American divorces the parties were foreign–born. This surprized me, as so large a proportion of the foreign–born are Papists. I asked him how far the War was responsible for the prevalence of sexual vice. He said that the elaborate & effective precautions against venereal disease, had certainly led numbers of the soldiers to think of sexual sin as merely a matter of physical disease, and when that consequence had been practically eliminated by prophylactics, to think self–indulgence permissible. In America as in England, the War had familiarised the troops with continental attitude towards sexual license, with the result that the traditional standard had been largely discredited. He thought that the vicious laxity, which multiplied divorces, was limited to some sections of American Society. Out of 2000 communicants in the church of which he had been Rector, he had not known of more than 20 or 30 divorced persons. He admitted, however that the divorce statistics were both unquestionable & terrifying.

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