The New English Weekly,4 (29 Mar 1934) 575-76
Sir, – To some, at least, of your readers it must be a matter of regret that a paper which is able to express itself so clearly on political and economic matters should have to take refuge (page 532, lower right hand corner) in cloudy truculence when it concerns itself with ecclesiastical polity. 1 As one who was in sympathy with the Archbishop of York’s proposals before they were known to the New English Weekly, I should be interested to know what this paper thinks of them; 2 and as you say only that “There can be no hesitation in the minds of normal people about the side they are to take,” I have what is to me the still more vital interest of wanting to know whether I am, according to the judgment of the New English Weekly, a normal person.
It strikes me further that your Theological Editor is inclined to interpret the words Thy Kingdom Come . . . in earthin a way of his own. I do not know what he means by its “ nativecondition of spirituality”: at what date was the Kingdom of Heaven born? And when he speaks of “agony and passion” he is transferring to the Incarnation two terms which are properly applicable to the Atonement. 3 What does your Theological Editor or Leader Writer meanby the “Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth”? What does he mean by saying that the ideal mission (I do not know how an ideal mission differs from a mission) of the Church is not of saving souls alonebut of creating a divine society of Mankind upon Earth? Is not the saving of souls the only way to create a divine society upon Earth? I should like some assurance that by “the Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth” your Theological Editor does not mean the National Dividend. 4
I trust that I have not been prejudiced – though in the spirit of one laying his cards upon the table I mention the point – by your writer’s using the verbs to poseand to sense. 5
t. s. eliot
