The Henson Journals

[247]

Thursday, August 28th, 1930.

The great heat continues. Yesterday, from several parts of England, temperatures above 90° in the shade were registered. There seems no immediate prospect of change.

Ella went into Durham with our guests in order to show them the Cathedral, and I remained in my study in order to make an attempt to write the article for 'The Political Quarterly', on "Ought the Establishment to be maintained?". Prof. Ernest Barker in his newly–published book, "Church, State and Study" has a useful statement about the modern State:–

"Today the world recognizes, & has recognized for over three centuries, not only a distinction between the States, but also a distinction between two societies in each State – the secular and the religious. These two societies may have different laws (for instance, in the matter of marriage), and conflicts of duties & of jurisdictions may easily arise in consequence. The State may permit what the Church forbids: and in that case the citizen who is also a [248] churchman must necessarily revolt against one or other of the societies to which he belongs. The conflict between the two societies and the different obligations which they impose was a conflict unknown to the Middle Ages." (v. p. 65)

The secular state is really a new phenomenon, and it invalidates all the precedents.

The Archbishop of Capetown & Mrs Carter, Mrs Körsteiner, Fearne and I motored to Blanchland via Stanhope, and returned via Tow Law, after having tea in the Crew Arms, and seeing the church. There was so thick a haze over the country that the exceeding beauty of the country was mostly obscured, but the party expressed itself more than satisfied with the expedition. Few people realize that the County of Durham, which is mainly known for its coal–mines and ship–yards, includes some of the finest moorland scenery in England. Weardale and Teesdale will 'take a lot of beating' in any competition of fine scenery.

[249]

We gave a dinner–party, numbering 14 in all viz.:

Abp Carter & Mrs Carter

Sir Guy & Lady Wrightson

John Wrightson

General Newcombe

Sybil, Lady Eden

Mrs Körsteiner

Mr & Mrs Seton Christopher

Miss Fearne Booker

The Bishop of Durham & Mrs Henson

Captain Johnson

There was a good deal of mixed chatter, but nothing emerged from it all that was worth remembering. [symbol] As the party were dispersing the black head and white throat of a swallow looked out from the nest over the chapel door. The sweet bird seemed to be quite untroubled by the human bustle.

Now is this kind of hospitality capable of being brought within the boundaries of episcopal duty? Is it what the Apostle had in his mind when he laid it down that the Bishop was to be "given to hospitality"?

[250]

["]A nation is most active, & most truly national when it is possessed by religious conviction – not, I hasten to add, the conviction of those moments of aberration in which a nation regards itself as God's own chosen instrument for working out his intentions, but the conviction of a resolute & permanent faith which makes a nation firm in the pursuit of a cause, such as (to take but one example) the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery as things contrary to Christian principle. Our own nation has suffered from its moments of aberration, in which it has dreamed sad dreams of an English God & God's Englishman: but in its more sober & permanent disposition it has been inspired by a not ignoble notion of national duty to aid the oppressed – the persecuted Vaudois, the suffering slave, the oppressed nationality – and it has been most characteristically national when it has most felt such inspiration. And indeed it follows, if a nation be in its nature a spiritual society, that it will be most itself when [251] it is most stirred by spiritual motives and purposes.["]

Ernest Barker, Church, State, & Study. P. 147

I find it hard not to think that it is precisely in those "moments of aberration" when a nation imagines itself 'the chosen people' that its policy takes an exalted and altruistic character. The examples of religious national action, which are offered in support of the argument are not very relevant. England helped "the persecuted Vaudois" just at the time when the notion that Englishmen were in a distinctive sense, "God's", held the national mind. The abolition of the slave–trade was rather the achievement of a group of benevolent Evangelicals than the act of a nation pursuing an ideal: and English zeal for "oppressed nationalities" was the insular expression of a democratic sentiment which transcended all national boundaries. None of these altruistic policies owed much to the National Church. It was always 'the nonconformist conscience' which was most sensitive on moral issues: & that was mostly guided by sectarian resentments.

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