The Dean of Durham sends a powerful and convincing letter
on the Divinity Degrees to Tuesday's Times. He explodes the unsound arguments of those who object to the change as leading to scandal. "To my thinking a morally debased D.D. is even more repulsive to contemplate than one who is theologically unsound. Yet no subscriptions or limita- tions can provide any completely satisfactory safeguards against that greater scandal. We have to take the risk. I suggest that with respect to the lesser scandal also we may fairly take the risk." Secondly, Dean Henson notes that the salient factor in the situation, the existence of a real and indefensible grievance, is admitted by the opponents of the proposed change, though they disclose no remedy. Thirdly, the attitude of resistance is impossible to reconcile with that assumed by the clergy in their campaign against Welsh Dis- establishment, viz., that Establishment, as it exists to-day, has been cleansed of the inequalities which formerly attached to it. Hence Dean Henson declares his resolve to support the proposal, on the triple ground that he prefers to run a trivial risk rather than Maintain a manifest wrong; that it is as absurd to suppose that theological degrees certify con- viction as that they should be held to guarantee character ; and that as a convinced believer in Establishment he must needs insist on removing all removable grievances from the Established system which he defends.
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