The Henson Journals

[258]

11th Sunday after Trinity, August 31th, 1930.

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I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. We numbered but 8 communicants including our 3 guests. The Gospel contained one of the most searching of our Lord's Parables, "The Pharisee and the Publican". It is addressed to religious people, and strikes a note of suspicious questioning into all their comfortable conventional religion.

A young preacher was criticized by the incumbent in whose church he was preaching. "You should use Simeon's Skeletons of Sermons he said. Some while later the same preacher, having followed his senior's advice, preached again in the same church. "Dear me!" said the incumbent in the vestry when the service was over. "I preached that very same sermon myself last Sunday." "Really", rejoined the other, "that explains what I overheard one good woman say to another as they left the church this morning. "It's wonderful how Grace leans holy men to the same thoughts about the scripture."

There are no doubt other causes than "Grace" which may explain similarity of thought & even identity of phrase!

[259]

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I propose to preach from notes a short sermon on the words of S. Paul to the Galations – "Bear ye one another's burdens, & so fulfil the law of Christ… For each man shall bear his own burden."

There was quite a good congregation at S. Andrew's, Tudhoe, when I celebrated and preached at 10.30 a.m. About 80 persons communicated, a very large proportion of whom were young men. And their devotees of aspect and demeanour was very remarkable. It was clear that the Vicar, Marsh, has gained a good influence over them. The lay–reader, who is evidently devoted to his chief, wept when he spoke of his illness. He has been sitting up with Marsh for 3 nights, and is over–wrought. Practically he is acting–vicar. Here the practical meaning of the shortage of the clergy is brought home to one's mind. We have travelled far from 'the gentleman–&–scholar in every parish' version of the parochial system. Marsh is only 59, but, I fear, he is broken, and, if he survives his present collapse, will be really inadequate to so considerable a charge as Tudhoe. Where to place him, and how to replace him, I cannot see.

[260]

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Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received Tenents and commonly presumed Truths. This curious book, by far the longest of Sir Thomas Browne's Works, was published in 1646, when its author was 40 years old. It was widely read, & successive editions were published, but its popularity has not survived the xviith century. 'Probably few even of the author's admirers have read it through from cover to cover. Nevertheless, anyone who has the courage to do so will find in it a wealth of wit, humour, and curious learning, with many characteristic passages of great beauty.' I think I shall put this statement to the test.

[symbol] The Bishop of Jarrow on his way to Durham called to see me. He appeared to be in the best of spirits, and asserted that he was physically in fine condition having had a month of steady reading by way of holiday. I asked him whether he was satisfied with the work of the Lambeth Conference, and he replied that his observation of the Bishops tended to make him proud of the Anglican Communion. They were far more liberal & honest than he had expected to find them.

[261]

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The Observer contains a prominent advertisement of Marie Stope's works with a quotation of the Lambeth Resolution in leaded type! This will certainly deepen the alarm which that Resolution has certainly caused in the more conservative section of the Anglican public. It is not surprising that this should be so, for (to quote Sir Thomas Browne)

'we are very sensible, how hardly teaching years do learn, what roots old age contracteth unto errors, and how such as are but acorns in our younger brows, grow Oaks in our elder heads, and become inflexible unto the powerfullest arm of reason.'

Personally, I wish we could have avoided the whole subject of what is misleadingly called 'Birth Control', but we could not: and, once the subject had been raised. I do not see that we could have taken any other line than that which we have taken. It would have been disastrous to throw the whole weight of the Anglican Episcopate on to the side of the sheer 'dervishdom'.

[262]

We motored to Durham after lunch, and there attended Evensong in the Cathedral. Rawlinson wearing his new red cassock as a King's chaplain, read the first lesson, and the Dean, looking what the Hindu professors are said to have called him "His Enormity", read the second. After the service we had tea in the Deanery, where we found staying there an old Harrow master, who now resides at Tivoli. He expressed himself as a strong champion of Mussolini, who, he said was regenerating Italy. He allowed that his methods implied "a sacrifice of liberty", but seemed to think that to be no excessive price. He urged me to read a book by Luigi Villari, which in his judgement met effectively the criticisms on Mussolini's régime. He admitted, however, that it was unsafe to talk about the Dictator except in terms of object eulogy, for Rome (as in the days of Domitian) swarmed with delatores. But he refused to allow any credit to the denunciations of Nitti who, he affirmed, was an extremely bad Prime Minister, and, of course, a bitter opponent of Mussolini. We returned to Auckland about 6 p.m.

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