Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was lauded in his own day as one of the leading
figures in English literature, yet today he is almost completely forgotten. Few
stars of the literary firmament, either before or since, have shone quite so
brightly in their own time before being eclipsed quite so inexplicably in
posterity. This excerpt is from his book Confessions of a Convert,
published the year before his death.
Robert
Hugh Benson
(1871-1914)
§ 1.
I was in a very curious and unsatisfactory state when I
came home. I do not propose to discuss these symptoms in public, but, to sum it
up in a word, I was entirely exhausted on the spiritual side. Yet it was now
absolutely clear to me, so far as I could see intellectually, that my submission
was a duty. I made this clear also to my mother, from whom I had had no secrets
from the beginning; and I settled down, as she desired me, towards, I think, the
end of May, to allow myself time and energy for a reaction, if such should come.
Occasionally I celebrated the Communion still in the little chapel of the house,
for the reasons that I have already explained; but, with the consent of my
Superior, I refused all invitations to preach, saying that my plans were at
present undecided. This, of course, was absolutely true, as I sufficiently
trusted my Superior’s and my mother’s judgment to allow of the possibility of a
change of mind. I was still technically a member of the Community of the
Resurrection, said my Office regularly, and observed the other details of the
rule that were binding upon me. I had told, however, a few intimate friends of
what I thought would happen.
§ 2.
I have mentioned before a certain MS. book upon the
Elizabethan days of the Church of England. This had aroused my interest, and I
began to consider whether, as a kind of safety-valve, I could not make some sort
of historical novel upon the subject. The result was that I was soon hard at
work upon a book, afterwards published under the title, “By What Authority?” It
was extraordinary how excited I became. I worked for about eight or ten hours
every day, either writing, or reading and annotating every historical book and
pamphlet I could lay my hands upon. I found paragraphs in magazines, single
sentences in certain essays, and all of these I somehow worked into the material
from which my book grew. By the beginning of September the novel was
three-quarters finished. I have formed a great many criticisms upon that book
now. It is far too long; it is rather sentimental; it is too full of historical
detail; above all, the mental atmosphere there depicted is at least a century
before its time; men did not, until almost Caroline days, think and feel as I
have represented them thinking and feeling in Elizabeth’s reign. In two points
only am I satisfied with it: there is, I think, a certain pleasant freshness
about it, and I have not as yet detected in it any historical errors. I was
absurdly careful in details that were wholly negligible with regard to general
historical truth. This work, I think, was an exceptionally good safety-valve,
for my spirits, and if I had not found it I do not quite know what would have
happened.
Now, more than ever, my resolution began to run clear. In book after book that I
read I found the old lines of the Church of England burning themselves upwards,
like the lines of buried foundations showing through the grass in a hot summer.
I began to marvel more than ever how in the world I could have even imagined
that the Anglican Communion possessed an identity of life with the ancient
Church in England. For years past I had claimed to be saying Mass, and that the
Sacrifice of the Mass was held as a doctrine by the Church of England; and here
in Elizabethan days were priests hunted to death for the crime of doing that
which I had claimed to do. I had supposed that our wooden Communion tables were
altars, and here in Tudor times were the old stones of the altars defiled and
insulted deliberately by the officials of the Church to which I still nominally
belonged, and wooden tables substituted instead. Things which were dear to me at
Mirfield — vestments, crucifixes, rosaries — in Elizabethan days were denounced
as “trinkets” and “muniments of superstition.” I began to wonder at myself, and
a little while later gave up celebrating the Communion service.
§ 3. Sometime
in the course of the summer, at my mother’s wish, I went to consult three
eminent members of the Church of England — a well-known parish clergyman, an
eminent dignitary, and a no less eminent layman. They were all three as kind as
possible. Above all, not one of them reproached me with disloyalty to my
father’s memory. They understood, as all with chivalrous instincts must have
understood, that such an argument as that was wholly unworthy.
The parish clergyman did not affect me at all. He hardly argued, and he said
very little that I can remember, except to call attention to the revival of
spiritual life in the Church of England during the last century. I did not see
that this proved anything except that God rewarded an increase of zeal by an
increase of blessing. He himself was an excellent example of both. Neither could
I see the force of his further argument that, since this spiritual revival
showed itself along sacramental lines, therefore here was an evidence for the
validity of Anglican Sacraments. For, first, precisely the same revival has been
at work with regard to sacramental views among the Presbyterians, and
high-church Anglicans do not for that reason accept the validity of Presbyterian
Orders; and, second, it is natural that among Anglicans the revival should have
taken that form, since the Prayer Book itself affords scope in this direction.
The dignitary with whom I stayed a day or two, and who was also extremely
forbearing, did not, I think, understand my position. He asked me whether there
were not devotions in the Roman Church to which I felt a repugnance. I told him
that there were — notably the popular devotions to Our Blessed Lady. He then
expressed great surprise that I could seriously contemplate submitting to a
communion in which I should have to use methods of worship of which I
disapproved. I tried in vain to make it clear that I proposed becoming a Roman
Catholic not because I was necessarily attracted by her customs, but because I
believed that Church to be the Church of God, and that therefore if my opinions
on minor details differed from hers, it was all the worse for me; that I had
better, in fact, correct my notions as soon as possible, for I should go to Rome
not as a critic or a teacher, but as a child and a learner. I think he thought
this an immoral point of view. Religion seemed to him to be a matter more or
less of individual choice and tastes.
This interview afforded me one more illustration of the conviction which I had
formed to the effect that as a Teaching Body — as fulfilling, that is, the
principal function for which Christ instituted a Church — the Church of England
was hopeless. Here was one of her chief rulers assuming, almost as an axiom,
that I must accept only those dogmas that individually happened to recommend
themselves to my reason or my temperament. Tacitly, then, he allowed no
authoritative power on the part of the Church to demand an intellectual
submission; tacitly, again, then, he made no real distinction between Natural
and Revealed Religion: Christ had not revealed positive truths to which, so soon
as we accepted Christ as a Divine Teacher, we instantly submitted without
hesitation. Or, if this seem too strong, it may be said that the prelate in
question at any rate denied the existence anywhere on earth of an authority
capable of proposing the truths of Revelation in an authoritative manner, and
hence, indirectly evacuated Revelation of any claim to demand man’s submission.
The layman, with whom also I stayed, had showed me many kindnesses before, and
now crowned them all by his charity and sympathy. He emphasized the issues with
extreme clearness, telling me that if I believed the Pope to be the necessary
centre of Christian unity, of course I must submit to him at once; but he asked
me to be quite certain that this was so, and not to submit merely because I
thought the Pope an extremely useful aid to unity. The layman further told me
that he himself believed that the Pope was the natural outcome of ecclesiastical
development; that he was Vicar of Christ jure ecclesiastico, but not
jure divino; and he pointed out to me that, unless I was absolutely certain
of the latter point, I should be far happier in the Church of England and far
more useful in the work of promoting Christian unity. With all this I heartily
agreed. A further curious circumstance was that, at this time, a prelate was
staying in the house with me who had had a great influence upon my previous
life. He knew why I was there, but I do not think we spoke of it at all. After
my return home again, my late host sent me a quantity of extraordinarily
interesting private documents, which I read and returned. But they did not
affect me. They are documents that have since been published.
Towards the end of July I was once more tired out in mind and soul, and was in
further misery because an ultimatum had come from Mirfield, perfectly kind and
perfectly firm, telling me that I must now either return to the annual
assembling of the community or consider myself no longer a member. The Brother
who was commissioned to write this had been a fellow-probationer of mine, with
whom I had been on terms of great intimacy. He wrote in obvious distress, and
after my answer, written in equal distress, telling him that I could not come
back, I never since received any communication from him until one day when I met
him by chance in the train. We took up then, I hoped at the time, our old
friendship; but even more recently he has again refused my acquaintance, on the
ground that I showed too much “bitterness” in public controversy.
Further, about this time I was engaged in another rather painful correspondence.
A dignitary of the Church of England, the occupant of an historic see and an old
friend of my family, hearing somehow that I was in distress of mind as to my
spiritual allegiance, wrote to me an extremely kind letter, asking me to come
and stay with him. I answered that I was indeed in trouble, but had already
looked into the matter so far as I was capable. But I suppose that I must have
seemed to hint that I was still open to conviction, for he wrote again, still
more affectionately, and then somehow the correspondence became the retraversing
of the old ground I had passed months before. Finally I told him plainly that I
was already intellectually decided, and received in answer a very sharp letter
or two, telling me that if I would only go and work hard in some slum parish all
my difficulties would disappear. He might equally well have told me to go and
teach Buddhism. In his last letter he prophesied that one of three things would
happen to me: either (which he hoped) I should return quickly to the Church of
England with my sanity regained, or (which he feared) I should lose my Christian
belief altogether, or (which he seemed to fear still more, and in which he was
perfectly right) I should become an obstinate, hardened Romanist. It appeared to
him impossible that faith and open-mindedness should survive conversion. I hope
I have not wronged him in this representation of his views. I destroyed his
letter immediately.
§ 4. In order
to distract myself from all this, I then went for a few days’ bicycling tour
alone in the south of England, dressed as a layman, calling first at the
Carthusian Monastery of St. Hugh, Parkminster, with an introduction to one of
the Fathers, himself a convert clergyman. He received me very courteously, but
the visit depressed me even further, if that were possible. He seemed to me not
to understand that I really asked nothing but to be taught; that I was not
coming as a critic, but as a child. I do not think that I resented this, because
my whole soul told me it was not quite just; if it had been just, I think I
should have assumed a kind of internal indignation as a salve to wounded vanity.
I went on in despair and stayed a Sunday in lodgings at Chichester, where for
the last time, in a little church opposite the Cathedral, I made my Anglican
Confession, telling the clergyman plainly that I was practically certain I
should become a Roman Catholic. He very kindly gave me his absolution and told
me to cheer up.
Then for the last time I attended, as an Anglican, cathedral services and
received Communion; for I still thought it my duty to use every conceivable
means of grace within my reach. On the Monday I rode on to Lewes, thence to Rye,
where, at supper in the “George Inn,” I had a long conversation with a man whom
I took to be a certain distinguished actor, talking to him for the most part
about the Catholic Church, which he also loved from a distance, but not saying
anything about my intentions. As a matter of fact, he did nearly all the
talking. On the following day I rode home by Mayfield, all through a blazing
summer’s day, looking with a kind of gnawing envy at the convent walls as I
passed them, and staying for a few minutes in a beautiful little dark Catholic
Church that I ran across unexpectediy in a valley.
§ 5. Now it
seems very difficult to say why I had not submitted before this. The reasons, I
think, were as follows. First, there was the wish of my mother and family that I
should allow myself every possible opportunity for a change of mind under new
surroundings, and this, even, by itself, would have been sufficient to hold me
back for a while. I was trying to be docile, it must be remembered, and to take
every hint that could possibly come from God. Secondly, there was my own state
of mind, which, though intellectually convinced, was still in an extraordinary
condition. I entirely refuse to describe it elaborately — it would not be
decent; but the sum of it was a sense of a huge, soulless, spiritual wilderness,
in which, as clear as a view before rain, towered up the City of God. It was
there before me, as vivid and overwhelming as a revelation, and I stood there
and eyed it, watching for the least wavering if it were a mirage, or the least
hint of evil if it were of the devil’s building. Cardinal Newman’s phrase
describes best, I think, my mental condition. I knew that the Catholic Church
was the true Church, but I did not absolutely know that I knew it.
I had no kind of emotional attraction towards it, no illusions of any kind about
it. I knew perfectly well that it was human as well as divine, that crimes had
been committed within its walls; that the ways and customs and language of its
citizens would be other than those of the dear homely town which I had left;
that I should find hardness there, unfamiliar manners, even suspicion and blame.
But for all that it was divine; it was built upon the Rock of rocks; its
foundations were jewelled even if its streets were as hard as gold; and the Lamb
was the light of it.
But the setting out towards its gates was a hard task. I had no energy, no sense
of welcome or exultation; I knew hardly more than three or four of its inmates.
I was deadly sick and tired of the whole thing.
But God was merciful very soon. Even now I do not exactly know what precipitated
the final step; the whole world seemed to me poised in a kind of paralysis. . .
. I could not move; there was no other to suggest it to me. . . . But at the
beginning of September, with my mother’s knowledge, I wrote a letter to a priest
I knew personally, putting myself in his hands. This friend of mine, also a
convert, was now contemplating entering the Dominican Order, and recommended me,
therefore, to Father Reginald Buckier, O.P., then living at Woodchester. Two or
three days later I received notice that I was expected at the Priory, and on
Monday, September 7, in lay clothes, I set out on my journey. My mother said
good-bye to me at the station.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Robert Hugh Benson. "Confessions of a Convert." Catholic Dossier 8 no.
2 (March-April, 2002): 20-23.
This article is reprinted with permission from Catholic Dossier.
THE AUTHOR
Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, became a
Roman Catholic priest, a novelist, and a prominent writer of apologetics. Benson
was the youngest son of E. W. Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as head of
the Anglican Church, was the upholder of the Protestant establishment in
England. As such, his son's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1903, and his
subsequent ordination, caused a sensation. Not since Newman's conversion almost
60 years earlier had the reception of a convert into the Church caused such a
commotion. Shudders of shock shook the Anglican establishment, whereas many
Catholics rejoiced at the news of such a high-profile coup with unrestrained
triumphalism. Hugh Benson was lauded in his own day as one of the leading
figures in English literature, yet today he is almost completely forgotten
outside Catholic circles and is sadly neglected even among Catholics. Few stars
of the literary firmament, either before or since, have shone quite so brightly
in their own time before being eclipsed quite so inexplicably in posterity.
Almost a century after his conversion, Benson has become the unsung genius of
the Catholic Literary Revival.