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[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