BISHOP HENSLEY HENSON
_He early attained a high development, but he has not increased it
since; years have come, but they have whispered little; as was said
of the second Pitt, "He never grew, he was cast_."--WALTER BAGEHOT.
Rumour has it that Dr. Henson is beginning to draw in his horns. Every
curate who finds himself unable to believe in the Virgin Birth, so it
said, feels himself entitled to a living in the diocese of Durham. They
flee from the intolerant zealotry of the sacerdotal south to the genial
modernism of the latitudinarian north.
But the trouble is, so rumour has it, these intelligent curates prove
themselves but indifferent parish priests. Dr. Henson has to complain.
The work of the Church must be carried on. Evangelicalism seems a better
driving force than theology. Dr. Henson has to think whether perhaps . . .
One need not stop to ask if this version is strictly true. The fact
seems to emerge that the Bishop of Durham, one of the ablest intellects
in the Church of England, and hitherto one of the strongest pillars of
modernism, is beginning to speak theologically with rather less
decision.
Let us at least express the pious hope that the Dean of Durham, Dr.
Welldon, has had nothing to do with it. A greater man than Dr. Henson, a
greater scholar and a profounder thinker, has spoken to me of this new
movement in the Bishop's mind with a deep impersonal regret. Modernism
will go on; but what will happen to Dr. Henson? "A man may change his
mind once," he said; "but to change it twice--"
The words of Guicciardini came into my mind, "The most fatal of all
neutralities is that which results not from choice, but from
irresolution."
There is much to be learned, I think, from a study of Dr. Henson's
personality. He stands for the moment at a parting of the ways, and it
will be interesting to see which road he intends to take; but the major
interest lies in his abiding psychology, and no change in theological
opinions will affect that psychology at all. Attach to him the label of
"modernist" or the label of "traditionalist," and it will still be the
same little eager man thrusting his way forward on either road with
downward head and peering eyes, arguing with anyone who gets in his way,
and loving his argument far more than his way.
When he was at Oxford, and was often in controversial conflict with Dr.
A.C. Headlam, now Regius Professor of Divinity, Dr. Hensley Henson
earned the nickname of Coxley Cocksure. Never was any man more certain
he was right; never was any man more inclined to ridicule the bare idea
that his opponent could be anything but wrong; and never was any man
more thoroughly happy in making use of a singularly trenchant intellect
to stab and thrust its triumphant way through the logic of his
adversary.
It is said that Dr. Henson has had to fight his way into notice, and
that he has never lost the defect of those qualities which enabled him
so victoriously to reach the mitred top of the ecclesiastical tree. He
has climbed. He has loved climbing. Perhaps he has so got into this
bracing habit that he may even "climb down," if only in order once more
to ascend--a new rendering of _reculer pour mieux sauter_. I do not
think he has much altered since he first set out to conquer fortune by
the force of his intellect, an intellect of whose great qualities he has
always been perhaps a little dangerously self-conscious.
Few men are more effective in soliloquy. It is a memorable sight to see
him standing with his back to one of the high stone mantelpieces in
Durham Castle, his feet wide apart on the hearth-rug, his hands in the
openings of his apron, his trim and dapper body swaying ceaselessly from
the waist, his head, with its smooth boyish hair, bending constantly
forward, jerking every now and then to emphasise a point in his
argument, the light in his bright, watchful, sometimes mischievous eyes
dancing to the joy of his own voice, the thin lips working with pleasure
as they give to all his words the fullest possible value of vowels and
sibilants, the small greyish face, with its two slightly protruding
teeth on the lower lip, almost quivering, almost glowing, with the
rhythm of his sentences and the orderly sequence of his logic. All this
composes a picture which one does not easily forget. It is like the
harangue of a snake, which is more subtle than any beast of the field.
One is conscious of a spell.
The dark tapestried room, the carved ceiling, the heavy furniture, the
embrasured windows, the whole sombre magnificence of the historic
setting, quiet, almost somnolent, with the enduring memories of Cuthbert
Tunstall and Butler, Lightfoot and Westcott, add a most telling vivacity
to the slim and dominating figure of this boylike bishop, who is so
athletic in the use of his intellect and so happy in every thesis he
sets himself to establish.
It is an equally memorable sight to see him in his castle at Bishop
Auckland in the rôle of host, entertaining people of intelligence with
the history of the place, showing the pictures and the chapel,
exhibiting curious relics of the past--a restless and energetic figure,
holding its own in effectiveness against men of greater stature and more
commanding presence by an inward force which has something of the tang
of a twitching bow-string.
So much energy would suggest a source of almost inexhaustible power. But
that is perhaps the greatest disappointment of all in the Bishop's
psychology. In the case of Dr. Inge one is very conscious of a rich and
deep background, a background of mysticism, from which the intellect
emerges with slow emphasis to play its part on the world's stage. In the
case of Bishop Ryle one is conscious behind the pleasant, courtierlike,
and scholarly manner of a background of very wholesome and unquestioning
moral earnestness. But in Dr. Henson one is conscious of nothing behind
the intellect but intellect itself, an intellect which has absorbed his
spiritual life into itself and will permit no other tenant of his mind
to divert attention for a single moment from its luminous brilliance,
its perfection of mechanism.
One may be quite wrong, of course; one can speak only of the impression
which he makes upon oneself and perhaps a few of one's friends; but it
would almost seem as if he had ever regarded Christianity as a thesis to
be argued, not a religion to be preached, a principle to be enunciated,
not a practice to be extended, a tradition to be maintained, not a
passion to be communicated.
Yet his sermons, which a great Anglo-Catholic declared to me with a
mocking mordancy to be full of "edification," do often enter that region
of religion which seems to demand an appeal to the emotions; moreover,
it is not to be thought for a moment that the Bishop is not deeply
concerned with all moral questions, that he is in the least degree
indifferent to the high importance of conduct. But for myself these
excursions, earnest and well-intentioned as they are, proclaim rather
the social energy of the good citizen than the fervent zeal of an
apostle on fire with his Master's message. The evangelicalism of the
Bishop has taken, as it were, the cast of politics, and he enters the
pulpit of Christ to proclaim the reasonableness of the moral law with
the alacrity of the lecturer.
This is what makes him so interesting a study for those curious about
the workings of religious psychology. Here is a thoroughly good man, as
fearless and upright as any man in the kingdom, a figure among scholars,
a power among organisers, a very able, sincere, and trenchant
personality, who has thrown the whole weight of all he has to give on
the side of Christianity, but who, for some reason, in despite of all
his hard work and unquestionable earnestness, does not convey any idea
of the attraction of Christ.
It makes one doubt, not that the Bishop has reserved his feelings for
another affection, but whether he has any feelings to bestow. One thinks
that he has drawn up and concentrated so effectually all the forces of
his personality into the intellect that it is now impossible for him to
see religion except as an intellectual problem. One thinks, too, that he
has never dreamed of converting other people to his views, but only of
arguing them out of theirs. Yet, after all, there are more ways of
converting the world than beating a drum.
I am certain, however, that he could easier convince a socialistic
collier or a communistic iron-moulder of the absurdity of his economics
than persuade either the one or the other of the spiritual satisfaction
of his own religion. Perhaps religion presents itself to the Bishop, as
it does to a great number of other people, as a consecration of moral
law, and clearly moral law is something to be established by reason, not
commended by appeals to the sentiments; not for one moment, all the
same, would he countenance the famous cynicism of Gibbon--"The various
modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all
considered by the people as equally true; by the philosophers as equally
false; and by the magistrate as equally useful"--for no man sees more
clearly the permanent need of religion in the human spirit, and no man
is more sincerely convinced of the truth of the Christian religion. But
he brings to religion, as I think, only his intellect, and so he has
intellectualised its ethic, and has left its deepest meaning to those
who possess, what he has either always lacked or has forfeited in his
intellectual discipleship, the qualities of mysticism.
One might almost say that he has intellectualised the Sermon on the
Mount, dissected the Prodigal Son as a study in psychology, and taken
the heart out of the Fourth Gospel.
His usefulness, however, is of a high order. With the sole exception of
Dean Inge, no front bench Churchman has displayed a more admirable
courage in confronting democracy and challenging its Materialistic
politics. Moreover, although he modestly doubts his effectiveness as a
public speaker, he has shown an acute judgment in these attacks which
has not been lost upon the steadier minds in the Labour world of the
north. Perhaps he has done as much as any man up there to convince an
embittered and disillusioned proletariat that it must accept the
inevitable rulings of economic law.
His courage in this matter is all the more praiseworthy because he seems
to be convinced, to speak in general terms, that the religion of Christ
is now rejected by the democracy. It needs, therefore, great strength of
mind to face a body of men who have lost all interest in his religion,
and to address them not only as economist and historian but as one who
still believes that Christianity bestows a power which sets at defiance
all the worst that circumstance and condition can do to the soul of man.
In these addresses he puts aside the materialistic dreams of the social
reformer as impractical and dangerous.
Ideal reconstructions of society, pictures of "The Kingdom of God
upon earth," to use a popular but perilous phrase, are not greatly
serviceable to human progress. They may even turn men aside from
the road of actual progress, for the indulgence of philanthropic
imagination neither strengthens the will in self-sacrifice, nor
illumines the practical judgment.
His argument then leads him to question the justification of the social
reformer's oratory. "Let us be on our guard," he says, "against
exaggeration."
I am sure that great harm is being done at the present time by the
reckless denunciation of the existing social order, often by men
who have no special knowledge either of the history of society, or
of the present situation. Hypnotised by their own enthusiasm, they
allow themselves to use language which is not only altogether
excessive, but also highly inflammatory. I am bound honestly to say
that I think some of the clergy are great offenders in this
respect. Having created or stimulated popular discontent by such
rhetorical exaggeration, they point to the discontent as itself
sufficient proof of the existence of social oppression. They are
immersed in a fallacy.
With boldness he carries the war into the camp of his enemies:
There is much food for thought in the notorious fact that the
critics of existing society, so far from being able to count upon
the popular discontent, are compelled to organise an elaborate
system of defaming propaganda in order to induce the multitude to
believe themselves oppressed.
He charges the social reformer with an immoral idealism. The worker is
encouraged to prolong his work, is taught that he may with perfect
justice adopt the policy of ca' canny, seeing that his first duty is,
not to his master, but to his wife and children.
"Imagine the effect on character," cries the Bishop, "of eight hours'
dishonesty every day, eight hours of a man's second or third best, never
his whole heart in his job! And this is called idealism!"
If industrialism were swept away, and some form of Socialism were
established, the success of the new order, as of the old, would
have to turn on the willingness of the people honestly to work it.
It hardly lies in the mouths of men who are labouring incessantly
to obstruct the working of the existing order, to build an argument
against it on the measure of their success in making it fail. There
are confessedly many grave evils in our industrial system, but
there are also very evident benefits. It is, like human nature
itself, a mingled thing. Instead of exaggerating the evils, the
wiser course would surely be to inquire how far they are capable of
remedy, and then cautiously--for the daily bread of these many
millions of British folk depends on the normal working of our
industrial system--to attempt reforms. Reckless denunciation is not
only wrong in itself, but it creates a listless, disaffected
temper, the farthest removed possible from the spirit of good
citizenship and honest labour.
In these quotations you may see something of the Bishop's acuteness of
intellect, something of his courage, and something of his wholesome good
sense. But, also, I venture to think, one may see in them something of
his spiritual limitations.
For, after all, is not the Christian challenged with an identical
criticism by the champions of materialism?
Why can't he leave people alone? Who asks him to interfere with the
lives of other people--other people who are perfectly contented to go
their own way? Look at the rascal! Having created or stimulated
spiritual discontent by rhetorical exaggeration, he points to the
discontent as itself sufficient proof of the dissatisfaction of
materialism! Out upon him, for a paid agitator, a kill-joy, and a
humbug. Let him hold his peace, or, with Nietzsche, consign these
masses of the people "to the Devil and the Statistician."
Might it not be argued that the Bishop's attitude towards the social
reformer bears at least a slight family resemblance to the attitude of
the Pharisees towards Christ, and of the Roman Power to the earliest
Christian communities? May it not be said, too, that nothing is so
disagreeable to a conservative mind as the fermentation induced by the
leaven of a new idea?
Never does dissatisfaction with the present condition of things appear
in the Bishop's eyes as a creation of the Christian spirit, an extension
of that liberalising, enfranchising, and enriching spirit which has
already destroyed so many of the works of feudalism. But he faces the
question of the part which the Church must play in the world; he faces
it with honesty and answers it with shrewdness--
What then is the rôle of the Church in such a world as this? Surely
it is still what it was before--to be the soul of society, "the
salt of the earth." If we, Christ's people, are carrying on, year
in and year out, a quiet, persistent witness by word and life to
"the things that are more excellent," the unseen things which are
eternal, we too shall be "holding the world together," and opening
before society the vista of a genuine progress. This is the supreme
and incommunicable task of the Church; this is the priceless
service which we can render to the nation.
The position is defensible, for it is one that has been held by the
saints, and dangerous indeed is the spirit of materialism in the region
of social reform. But does not one miss from the Bishop's attack upon
the social reformer something much deeper than successful logic,
something which expresses itself in the works of other men by the
language of sympathy and charity, something which hungers and thirsts to
shed light and to give warmth, something which makes for the eventual
brotherhood of mankind under the divine Fatherhood of God?
Some such spirit as this, I think, is to be found in the writings of Mr.
R.H. Tawney, who, however much he may err and go astray in his
economics, cherishes at least a more seemly vision of the human family
than that which now passes for civilisation. Is it not possible that the
day may come when a gigantic income will seem "ungentlemanly"? Is it not
a just claim, a Christian claim, that the social organisation should be
based upon "moral principles"?
Christians are a sect, and a small sect, in a Pagan Society. But
they can be a sincere sect. If they are sincere, they will not
abuse the Pagans . . . for a good Pagan is an admirable person. But
he is not a Christian, for his hopes and fears, his preferences and
dislikes, his standards of success and failure, are different from
those of Christians. The Church will not pretend that he is, or
endeavour to make its own Faith acceptable to him by diluting the
distinctive ethical attributes of Christianity till they become
inoffensive, at the cost of becoming trivial.
. . . so tepid and self-regarding a creed is not a religion.
Christianity cannot allow its sphere to be determined by the
convenience of politicians or by the conventional ethics of the
world of business. The whole world of human interests was assigned
to it as its province (_The Acquisitive Society_).
It must not be supposed that the Bishop has no answer to this criticism
of his attitude. He would say, "Produce your socialistic scheme, and I
will examine it, and if it will work and if it is just I will support
it; but until you have found this scheme, what moral right do you
possess which entitles you to unsettle men's minds, to fill their hearts
with the bitterness of discontent, and to turn the attention of their
souls away from the things that are more excellent?"
On this ground, the ground of economics, his position seems to me
unassailable; but it is a position which suggests the posture of a
lecturer in front of his black-board rather than that of a shepherd
seeking the lost sheep of his flock. If the socialist must think again,
at least we may ask that the Bishop should sometimes raise his crook to
defend the sheep against the attack of the robber and the wolf. If the
sheep are to be patient, if they are not to stray, if they are not to
die, there must be food for their grazing.
But the Bishop, at the very roots of his being, is conservative, and the
good qualities of conservatism do not develop foresight or permit of
vision. He would stick to the wattled cotes; and I think he would move
his flock on to new pastures as seldom as possible. This will not do,
however. The social reformer tells the Bishop who thinks democracy has
rejected religion that "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed." The
roots of the old sustenance are nibbled level to the ground, and the
ground itself is sour. If socialism is wrong, let the Bishop tell us
where lies a safer pasture.
One seems to see in this thrusting scholar and restless energetic
prelate a very striking illustration of the need in the Christian of
tenderness. Intellect is not enough. Intellect, indeed, is not light; it
is only the wick of a lamp which must be fed constantly with the oil of
compassion--that is to say, if its light is to shine before men. The
Bishop dazzles, but he does not illumine the darkness or throw a white
beam ahead of heavy-laden and far-journeying humanity on the road which
leads, let us hope, to a better order of things than the present system.
Whether such a man calls himself traditionalist or modernist does not
greatly matter. One respects him for his moral qualities, his courage,
and his devotion to his work; one honours him for his intellectual
qualities, which are of a high and brilliant order; but one does not
feel that he is leading the advance, or even that he knows in which
direction the army is definitely advancing.
MISS MAUDE ROYDEN
ROYDEN, AGNES MAUDE, Assistant Preacher at the City Temple, 1918-20;
Founder with Dr. Percy Dearmer of the Fellowship Services at Kensington;
b. 1876, y.d. of late Sir Thomas Royden, 1st Bart. of Frankby Hall,
Birkenhead. Educ.: Cheltenham Ladies' College; Lady Margaret Hall,
Oxford. Worked at the Victoria Women's Settlement, Liverpool, for three
years and then in the country parish of Luffenham; Lecturer in English
Literature to the Oxford University Extension Delegacy; joined the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 1908; on Executive
Committee, 1908; Edited the _Common Cause_ till 1914; wrote and spoke
chiefly on the economic, ethical, and religious aspects of the Women's
Movement; resigned executive, 1914.
[Illustration: MISS MAUDE ROYDEN]