2110-5-1-23

[ST: Prayer book debate]

British Embassy, Paris.

18 December 1927

My dear Buchan

I have been looking with great interest at the H. of C. debate of last Thursday, including your excellent speech, with the conclusions of which I found myself in the fullest agreement. I notice that you quoted a phrase which has always appealed to me, - "uno itinere non potest perveniri ad tam grande secretum"; and that you ascribed it to one of the early Fathers. I was under the impression that it came from a speech of Q. Symmachus in the Senate, towards the end of the fourth century, where the old faith was fighting in the last ditch, and Christianity was winning all along the line. But however this may be, it does not affect its apposite bearing on the present controversy. For one wonders whether some of the less partisan opponents of the new Book try to realise what a motley army the Church of England is - and must remain if it is to continue as an Establishment. On the extreme left, so to speak, there are people who regard the Communion office as a memorial service, more solemn, but not essentially different from a service in commemoration of a Lord Shaftsbury or a Florence Nightingale. On the extreme right are those others who excite the Bishop of Birmingham's rather crude criticism of them as dealers in magic. Each of these extremist classes breaks the law as it stands, and defies the existing Prayer Book; but there was surely

a real hope that the soberer members of the two schools would accept the new Book, and while each reading an interpretation of their own into the Book of their preference, would agree to live and let live? Now, it is hard to see what will happen. I suppose nothing very dramatic; but that the Anglican irregularities will go on with increased boldness, with the chance of some public scandals if the devotees go very far Romewards. As it happens, I have often attended High Mass since I have lived in France, officially or otherwise, at funerals and weddings and other public occasions - And I have been impressed by recognising a much greater simplicity of attitude, and a closer relation beween the priests and the congregation, than one would find at a High Anglican ceremony in England.

At this last they always seem to be engaged in an incantation strictly personal to themselves, and aloof from the herd of worshippers. So no wonder that they often frighten "the man in the pew".

I "seize the occasion" to tell you how much I have enjoyed your last books as they have appeared, especially the calling up of Dr Johnson in his youth, and the most vivid presentation of the atmosphere of a deer-forest that I have ever come across.

Yours v. sincerely

Crewe

[ST: Ambassador in Paris]