The Henson Journals

[223]

9th Sunday after Trinity, August 17th, 1930.

[struck through] A hot night, and the morning dull & clouded. I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. We numbered but 7 communicants. [end]

I asked the Bishop of Uganda yesterday whether he was pleased with the state of the church in Uganda, and he replied that it was holding its own. "The Roman Catholicks are gaining strength, and are clearly making a great effort to carry the country. They are building churches & schools on a large scale. For one man that we can place, they can place ten." I inquired whether he thought that they would succeed, and he answered that he thought not. "Our people always take the lead: for our system teaches them to think, while theirs only teaches them to obey." This little conversation left on my mind an impression rather unfavourable than otherwise. Is not obedience the lesson which the African native needs most at the present stage of his evolution into a civilized responsible person? Might not Anglican effort be better directed to other fields of missionary enterprize, where the Roman Catholicks were not present, or at best were not so forceful?

[224]

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I spent much time in looking up the references to Merryweather in my journal. He was instituted to Pelton on July 3rd 1929, so that he has not been much more than a year in that parish before bringing on a crisis. The helplessness of the Bishop and the absurdity of the ecclesiastical systems as it now exists could hardly be more effectively disclosed. For while, on the one hand, the parson's behaviour has been quite indefensible: yet, on the other hand, that it should be corrected by the intrusive action of non–churchmen is quite insufferable. Impunity and interference are alike odious. In the afternoon Ella and I motored to Newsham, and had tea with the Knights. We talked over diverse diocesan matters, especially the situation at Pelton. On the whole, we inclined to let things take their course. Merryweather is an utterly undeserving fellow, who has no shred of a claim to any consideration. I dislike particularly doing anything which could give the impression that I was seeking to screen him from the due reward of his deeds. In equity I think he deserves as much humiliation as possible.

[225]

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The Bishop of Jarrow and I agree in thinking that the Lambeth Conference has demonstrated the strength of the central body of moderate Anglicans. Neither the extreme Anglo–Catholicks nor the extreme Evangelicals made much of an appearance in the debates or in the resolutions. Belief in the practicability of a middle form of Catholicism is taking root: whether their belief is well–founded it is yet too soon to say. The general contempt into which religion has fallen throughout Christendom facilitates every kind of moral & religious paradox. If anything should bring this contempt to an end, so that men again felt strongly, and believed truly, we might once more see a revival of religious conflicts, which would soon make an end of the artificial constructions which now serve to give a respectable shelter to oppugnant theories. At present, the fierce passions which raged within the religious sphere have transferred themselves to the sphere of economy. There, where man's material interests are visibly at stake, even the men of the 20th century can hate, and inspire one another. Lenin is the spiritual, &, indeed, almost the physical counterpart of Ignatius Loyola.

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