AN INTERESTING APPOINTMENT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1585, 31 October 1912, Page 6

AN INTERESTING APPOINTMENT.

The cablegram which appears in this issue announcing that Canon Henson, of Westminster, has been appointed Dean of Durham will be read with unusual interest, for the new Dean has made a name for himself throughout the English-speaking world. He is a distinguished Broad Churchman, and the author of a number of books on current Church questions. He is a striking preacher; a fearless critic, and a brilliant free lance, who_ is no respecter of persons, and is never afraid to stand alone. ■ He is a strong advocate of more friendly relations between Anglicans and Nonconformists, though he has recently crossed svfrds with his Free Church friends on the question of Welsh Disestablishment, Quite recently he delivered a striking sermon in Westminster Abbey on the Putumayo atrocitics, in which he expressly named three English directors'of the Peruvian Amazon Company, and said that though the actual perpetrators of the atrocities were out of reach, "their employers, with whose guilty, pven if unknowing, connivance their crimcs were committed, and who shared out the blood-stained gains which they transmitted, are here among us. Is it not tho irreducible demand of justice that these men, and notably their leader, the arch-organiser of the whole tragedy, Arana, should be arrested and brought to public trial?" The three directors instructed a firm o£ solicitors to write to Canon Hen- 1 , son. The letter, with the Canon's reply, was published in The Times, which, in a leader on tho correspondence, expressed tho view that the Canon came out very much to tho good. Though he has no sympathy with the use of the pulpit for the purposes of party politics, Dr. Henson believes that it is the right and duty of_ the clergy to speak with no uncertain sound when great moral issues are involved.' This, he thinks, applies in a special sense to Westminster Abbey, "the central shrine of English-speaking Christendom, where an ancient and religious raco preserves with jealous regard the memorials of those whose scrvice to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed has illuminated tho national history and exalted tho national ideal." De. Henson's independence, force of character, and striking ability as a preacher are sure to be appreciated at Durham, and his brilliant gifts as a debater will certainly 1 add to the general interest in the proceedings of the Northern Convocation. It will be no easy task to fill his place in London, where his frank and free criticism of men and tjhings have created widespread interest. Of course such men as Dk. Henson and the Dean of St: Paul's (Dr. Inge) are too_ outspoken, and too merciless in their exposure of superstitions and fallacies t-o be very popular, but they have a most wholesomo and bracing influence on tho community, especially in these days when tho temptation for public men to swim with the tido is so great. There has never been more urgent need for independent leaders of thought, who are not afraid to tell a triumphant democracy of its faults and warn it of its dangers.