[No surviving envelope]
I have jotted down on separate sheets a few remarks provoked by your last letter – separately, because it emphasises the impersonality of such a discussion – and remarks only, because I have found it impossible to treat what you said as a continuous piece of argument. But I would like to say emphatically that such a discussion does not cause me any difficulty or distress of mind, and that for you to fear to hurt my feelings would be to approach the matter altogether wrong. And for my part I do not want to be embarrassed by the feeling that anything I said might hurt your feelings – even if I should say that you strike me as just a little bigoted! This should be as impersonal a search for truth as if we were discussing a problem in astronomy – even though some of the subject matter may be our own prejudices and emotions.
Iwritingon new typewriter;c5 have been working this week on the end of the play, and tomorrow I have a new typewriter coming to take the place of this, which has served me for about ten years, I think, of hard work.
OfMunich Agreementwith respect to Czechoslovakia;a1 course the political situation has been oppressive to everyone this last week. I think that we shall probably succeed in postponing any crisis for some time, by the means of some territorial sacrifice of Czechoslovakia: it is a situation in which I like none of the alternatives. But I am very dissatisfied with Britain. One can only pray for peace, and meanwhile get on with one’s work.
I am happy to have all the evidences of your passage here – in the bathroom fittings, on my mantelpiece; and the diary has come, but I shall not unwrap it till Christmas. Thetravels, trips and plansEH's 1938 summer in England;d1TSE reflects on;b3 time in London was as much pain as happiness, but in retrospect the element of happiness, as with the whole summer, becomes the stronger, since it is the promise of still closer understanding in the future. I wait impatiently for your first letter.
[Enclosure]
IHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1compared to TSE's;a5 hopeChristianityUnitarianism;d9as against Catholicism;a5 and pray indeed that I may receive gradually ‘an education in lines of new breadth, new vision, new understanding’; though I cannot conceive of such new education as disturbing the fundamental dogma of the Catholic Church, but rather as helping me to understand them better. It may be that you consider me to be narrow and intolerant. IChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1as against tolerance;a7 would wish to distinguish between Charity and Tolerance. One must aim at Charity in spirit, and at Tolerance in action: charity belongs to the world of spirit, and at tolerance to the world of practical affairs. If I am intolerant, merely to hold that certain vews [sc. views] are right and others wrong or imperfect, then that is an intolerance without which it is impossible to believe anything.
Second, let us admit not merely that I may be wrong, but what is quite another matter, that the Catholic Church may be wrong. The whole tradition of the Church, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that he founded the Church through his Apostles, and that the identity and continuity of the Church as a divine institution has been maintained through the Apostolic Succession of the Consecration of Bishops (as maintained by the Roman, the English, the Greek Orthodox and Swedish Churches) may be wrong, but it is definite. ItChristianityorthodoxy;c4'Christian' defined;a5 isChristianityUnitarianism;d9outside TSE's definition of 'Christian';b3 not denied that there are Christians outside of the Church, or that such Christians may not be saved by individual merit and God’s Grace. But there is a point of inclusiveness beyond which the term ‘Christian’ simply ceases to have any meaning. I hope that it is no defect of charity or tolerance on our part to decline to recognise many excellent people as ‘Christians’: I think it is rather a recognition of the fact that words must have meanings.
I would like you to keep separate in your mind such ideas and opinions as you believe to be mine individually, and the dogmas of the Church, which are no invention of mine.
It is held by Catholics, and by many who would not call themselves that, that the divisions of Christianity constitute a grievous scandal, even as the living wounds of Christ. We are called upon to pray and work for re-union, as we can. But that cannot mean a re-union which would stretch the term ‘Christian’ to cover all who have sentimental associations with it, but by common acceptance of dogma which cannot be surrendered.
I do not wish Unitarians to give up the term ‘Christian’, because it represents for them a traditional connexion with a descent, however tenuous, from Christianity. I believe that many people receive from Unitarian worship all the Grace of God that their environment and background allows the possibility of; and I hope that they will retain all the forms and words of Christian devotion that they use, because in this way some of them may be brought back to realise the need for true Christianity. Notwithstanding that there are very few contexts in which I should have occasion to use the term Christian so broadly as you do. You would be bound to assert that Unitarians possess all the essentials of Christian belief, and that Trinitarians retain many beliefs which seem to you merely superstitions.
You interpret theSt. Pauland orthodoxy;a5 passage from Corinthians in a way which I do not think any scholar would accept as what Paul meant: but perhaps you only claim that this is what the words should mean, whatever Paul meant. As for ‘diversities of forms of worship’ there is already considerable latitude. Whether one makes the sign of the Cross first from top to bottom, as in Western Europe, or first from left to right, as in the Russian Church, is obviously a form that does not matter; and it is not a matter of doctrine that one should make the sign at all, but only of decorum. But there are other forms which exist because of representing or symbolising particular belief, and some forms are of the utmost importance. There is a point beyond which difference of form means difference of belief.
ID'Arcy, Fr Martinrecommended to EH;b3 wouldChapman, Dom John, OSBrecommended again to EH;a2 likeChapman, Dom John, OSBSpiritual Letters;a4 you to read such books as D’Arcy’s (for theological doctrine) and Chapman’s, which I will send you later (for devotional method) not in the attitude of asking yourself ‘how much of this can I believe’, but primarily as a means of getting inside the minds of people very different from yourself. Read them as you would read texts of some quite alien religion, or as you would books about foreign peoples, merely to inform yourself as to what other people believe. And remember that these people are not trying to express their own originality, but first of all to maintain the faith which has been handed down by the Saints.
What the Communion means for you is a very good thing indeed, so far as it goes, and is a part, though not the central part, of what the Christian communicant should be aware of. But there are obvious reasons why I do not wish to enter upon the signification of the Eucharist at the present time.
That you should hold different beliefs from mine is a matter of trifling importance: it does matter that you hold beliefs denying those of the greatest Christians of all time. It is intelligible that you should think that they have been wrong, and that the progress of enlightenment has shown this: what I cannot understand is that you should think these differences to be indifferent, or anything but of the most vital importance.
1.Two Gentlemen of Verona, I. i.: ‘Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, / For I will be thy bead’s-man, Valentine’. Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, 5–6: ‘Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told / His rosary’.
8.DomChapman, Dom John, OSB John Chapman, OSB (1865–1933), Spiritual Letters (1935). A posthumous publication.
3.MartinD'Arcy, Fr Martin D’Arcy (1888–1976), Jesuit priest and theologian: see Biographical Register.