The Henson Journals

[191]

Friday, December 5th, 1930.

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The fog continues, and there is no wind to shift it.

The Times has a short and rather ill–natured letter from W.D. Morrison, the Vicar of Marylebone, whom I used to know when I lived in Westminster. It is more rudely expressed than I should have expected, and winds up with the sentence "But Auckland Castle is far from London". He is 10 years older than I.

I wrote a very brief letter to the 'Times' in reply to him and to old Dr. Wilson. There is really nothing to answer in their letters. The 'Guardian' and the 'Church Times' refer to me civilly, the 'Record' & 'the Ch. Of E. Gazette' rudely. So much might have been expected.

"Is the commission on Church and State designed honestly as the first step in the process of vindicating the self–respect of the Church of England? or is it a mere device for shuffling out of the way an acknowledged but intensely unwelcome moral obligation which English Churchmen cannot rightly ignore or belittle?

For myself, I am more than ever convinced that if the C. of E. shall be led to acquiesce in the situation which the rejection of the P.B. Measure has disclosed, a mortal blow will have been inflicted on its spiritual authority. A brief avoidance of trouble will be bought by a lasting loss of moral influence".

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