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The Cross was suffered without an anaesthetic, and so we have our several and lesser Calvaries....
October 2001
by Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone
published in ccfwebsite.com
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Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone died on 14th October 2001 aged 94. One of the very first members of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, he will be sadly missed.
Below we republish a commentary on Lord Hailsham by David Burrowes, CCF co-founder.
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THE FAITH OF LORD HAILSHAM
BY DAVID BURROWES
Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone has for over fifty years been a prominent political figure in Britain. He is still respected for his thoughtful,
intellectual approach, displayed in speeches and writings.
Lord Hailsham explained in his book, The Door Wherein I Went, this progress from the virtual agnosticism of his youth to Christianity, which became and has continued to be the abiding religious background to his personal, family and public life. In 1975, Lord Hailsham's wife Mary died, following which he encountered his greatest spiritual crisis.
He writes that the first thing he learnt 'was that religion is no automatic comfort in adversity... The Christian religion is not a painkiller, no analgesic, no patent medicine. It is not there to make the intolerable
suffering that, at one time or another, we all undergo in this world... The Cross was suffered without an anaesthetic, and so we have our several and lesser Calvaries...'
In the years following his wife's death, Lord Hailsham has come to realise more and more that faith 'is a continuing act of the will and not a simple statement of intellectual conviction'. He writes that 'without some element of conviction faith cannot exist. But basically, faith is trust... and it involves continuous action, commitment prayer, communication and, above all, love. Without it, life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'.
Speaking to the Conservative Christian Fellowship, Lord Hailsham said that he believes 'there is within all of us an intimate awareness of two apparently inconsistent facts. The first is that to our limited and finite minds and experience the universe as we know it is and remains a mystery. It is a mystery which in this life we shall never fully understand and which therefore demands faith without ever achieving knowledge, that is without demonstrable certainty.
The second is that as long as we remain alive and capable of rational thought we are bound to seek the clue to the mystery, and that we must seek this clue with our minds as well as our emotions.'
Lord Hailsham concludes in his memoirs A Sparrow's Flight, 'As I approach the throne of the ineffable, the more mere words fail to express my inmost feelings, and I take refuge in metaphor, in poetry, in music, in admiration for beauty in a landscape... But my doubts finally dissolve in wonder, in longing, in adoration. And, lo, a paradox appears. I seek God, and behold a bedraggled human figure impaled for public ridicule upon a gibbet.
I despair of man, and behold the same figure, enthroned in majesty above the clouds. If I go up to heaven, He is there. If I descend into the depths of misery and grief, he is there also. He is Alpha and Omega, the source of my being and the end of my pilgrimage. He is love, at once the beloved and the eternal lover. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, at once the creator, redeemer, the inspirer of suffering humanity, the companion on my way and
strengthener of my steps.
But He is Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life.'
Related links
Lord Hailsham addresses the CCF's inugural conference in February 1992
Sir Brian Mawhinney MP's Easter Essay - 2000
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