[Illustration: BISHOP HENSLEY HENSON]
CHAPTER V
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.
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