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diff --git a/39283.txt b/39283.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3cdfa3 --- /dev/null +++ b/39283.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7096 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to the Clergy, by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Letters to the Clergy + On The Lord's Prayer and the Church + +Author: John Ruskin + +Editor: F. A. Malleson + +Release Date: March 27, 2012 [EBook #39283] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO THE CLERGY *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Elizaveta Shevyakhova and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + LETTERS + TO THE CLERGY + + ON + + _The Lord's Prayer and the Church_ + + BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., D.C.L. + + + WITH REPLIES FROM CLERGY AND LAITY, AND + AN EPILOGUE BY MR. RUSKIN + + + EDITED, WITH ESSAYS AND COMMENTS, BY THE + REV. F. A. MALLESON, M.A. + VICAR OF BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS + + + THIRD EDITION + + + _WITH ADDITIONAL LETTERS BY MR. RUSKIN_ + + + LONDON + + GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD + + 1896 + + [_All rights reserved_] + + + + + _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO + + _At the Ballantyne Press_ + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +The first reading of the Letters to the Clerical Society to which they +were first addressed in September 1879, twenty-three clergy being +present, was prefaced with the following remarks:-- + + A few words by way of introduction will be absolutely necessary + before I proceed to read Mr. Ruskin's letters. They originated + simply in a proposal of mine, which met with so ready and willing a + response, that it almost seemed like a simultaneous thought. They + are addressed nominally to myself, as representing the body of + clergy whose secretary I have the honour to be; they are, in fact, + therefore addressed to this Society primarily. But in the course of + the next month or two they will also be read to two other Clerical + Societies,--the Ormskirk and the Brighton (junior),--who have + acceded to my proposals with much kindness, and in the first case + have invited me of their own accord. I have undertaken, to the best + of my ability, to arrange and set down the various expressions of + opinion, which will be freely uttered. In so limited a time, many + who may have much to say that would be really valuable will find no + time to-day to deliver it. Of these brethren, I beg that they will + do me the favour to express their views at their leisure, in + writing. The original letters, the discussions, the letters which + may be suggested, and a few comments of the Editor's, will be + published in a volume which will appear, I trust, in the beginning + of the next year. + + I will now, if you please, undertake the somewhat dangerous + responsibility of avowing my own impressions of the letters I am + about to read to you. I own that I believe I see in these papers + the development of a principle of the deepest interest and + importance,--namely, the application of the highest standard in the + interpretation of the Gospel message _to_ ourselves as clergymen, + and _from_ ourselves to our congregations. We have plenty elsewhere + of doctrine and dogma, and undefinable shades of theological + opinion. Let us turn at last to practical questions presented for + our consideration by an eminent layman whose field of work lies + quite as much in religion and ethics, as it does, reaching to so + splendid an eminence, in Art. A man is wanted to show to both + clergy and laity something of the full force and meaning of Gospel + teaching. Many there are, and I am of this number, whose cry is + "_Exoriare aliquis_." + + I ask you, if possible, to do in an hour what I have been for the + last two months trying to do, to divest myself of old forms of + thought, to cast off self-indulgent views of our duty as ministers + of religion, to lift ourselves out of those grooves in which we are + apt to run so smoothly and so complacently, persuading ourselves + that all is well just as it is, and to endeavour to strike into a + sterner, harder path, beset with difficulties, but still the path + of duty. These papers will demand a close, a patient, and in some + places, a few will think, an indulgent consideration; but as a + whole, the standard taken is, as I firmly believe, speaking only + for myself, lofty and Christian to the extent of an almost ideal + perfection. If we do go forward straight in the direction which Mr. + Ruskin points out, I know we shall come, sooner or later, to a + chasm right across our path. Some of us, I hope, will undauntedly + cross it. Let each judge for himself, [Greek: to telei pistin + pheron]. + + + + + PREFACE + + TO THE THIRD EDITION + + +Having been urged to bring out a new edition of the volume first edited +by me in 1880, and having willingly accepted the invitation to do so, it +will naturally be expected that I should give some account of the +circumstances which have led me to take the somewhat unusual step of +reviving a book which has for twelve years been lying in a state of +suspended animation. + +On the first conception of this volume I applied to Messrs. Strahan, to +produce it before the reading and thinking world. I should have done +more wisely, no doubt, had I offered the publication to Mr. George +Allen, Mr. Ruskin's well-known publisher. It avails not to explain why I +chose a different course, of which subsequent events only too soon +showed me the error; for after the first edition had been sold off in a +week, and while the second was partly sold and partly in preparation, +Messrs. Strahan's failure was announced, greatly to my surprise; my +somewhat isolated position in the north country so far from London +keeping me very imperfectly informed as to what was passing in the +literary world. + +Reasonable, business-like people would ask, why did I not make an effort +to rescue my little barque out of the general wreckage, and why did I +not, remembering that Mr. Ruskin had with much kindness freely bestowed +the copyright on me, save the second edition and arrange with another +publisher to carry the work on? But I was failing at the time with the +illness which was effectually cured only by a long sojourn amidst or +very near to the ice and snow of the Alps. I was incapable of much +exertion, and, in fact, did not much care. Besides which I am not a +professed literary man, being chiefly interested in the work of my rural +parish on the borders of the Lake District, and should not think it +fair, or even possible, if I may use an equestrian metaphor, to attempt +to ride two horses at once. + +So Mr. Ruskin's letters, etc., as edited by the present writer, came to +be entirely laid by, though not forgotten by the hosts of Mr. Ruskin's +friends, followers, and admirers, who regretted the suspension of so +valuable a work and so rich in great thoughts, teachings, and +suggestions. + +So things remained until August 1895, when a new friend, Mr. Smart, gave +me the pleasure of a visit, and we talked over the circumstances just +narrated. Passing over several very pleasant meetings in London, let it +be sufficient to mention that under the impulse of Mr. George Allen's +encouragement, and cheered by the valuable assistance and co-operation +of another friend, Mr. T. J. Wise, I agreed to carry forward this Third +Edition with the full approbation and consent of Mr. Ruskin himself, +though it should be said that on account of the state of his health, I +have been unable to consult him on any of the details of the +publication. + +But it will not be exactly the same volume. Mr. Allen and Mr. Wise, +having gone over much of my correspondence with Mr. Ruskin, were good +enough to express a desire that some of those letters addressed to +myself as a friend should be embodied in the present volume, as being +strongly illustrative of his views on the subjects dealt with in his +more formal Letters to the Clergy. I may claim pardon for a feeling of +great satisfaction with the circumstance that in the course of so long +and so delicate a correspondence as is contained in this volume, never +has a cloud overshadowed our paths in this matter, never has a cold +blast from the east sent a shiver through my system, nor, I presume, +his. For had Mr. Ruskin felt any resentment at anything I wrote, with +his usual downright frankness he would not have been backward for an +hour in expressing in vehement language what he felt. But from first to +last my intercourse with that kind and eminently distinguished friend +has been kept bright and happy by his unvarying serenity. + +The Letters from Clergy and Laity in this Third Edition occupy much less +space than in the original one. It was Mr. Ruskin's wish that they +should be subjected to some process of abridgment; besides which the +allowing of space for the new feature of additional Ruskin Letters made +a curtailment in another direction necessary. The plan which seemed to +me the least discourteous to my numerous correspondents of that time has +been to make a selection of passages from a certain number of the +Letters. + + F. A. MALLESON. + + THE VICARAGE, + + BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS, + + _January 1896._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION v + + PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xi + + MR. RUSKIN'S LETTERS-- + + LETTER I. 3 + + " II. 5 + + " III. 8 + + " IV. 9 + + " V. 12 + + " VI. 15 + + " VII. 19 + + " VIII. 25 + + " IX. 32 + + " X. 36 + + " XI. 42 + + ESSAYS AND COMMENTS. BY THE EDITOR 49 + + EXTRACTS OF LETTERS FROM CLERGY AND LAITY 131 + + LETTERS FROM BRANTWOOD-ON-THE-LAKE TO THE + VICARAGE OF BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS 219 + + EPILOGUE BY MR. RUSKIN 287 + + APPENDIX 323 + + + + + MR. RUSKIN'S LETTERS + + + + + I + + + BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, + _20th June, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I could not at once answer your important letter: +for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing to address +such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in answering to +any call relating to matters respecting which my feelings have been long +in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for me to be of service +therein. My health--or want of it--now utterly forbids my engagement in +any duty involving excitement or acute intellectual effort; but I +think, before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to write one +or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more or less completing, +some passages already printed in Fors and elsewhere, which might, on +your reading any portions you thought available, become matter of +discussion during the meeting at some leisure time, after its own main +purposes had been answered. + +At all events, I will think over what I should like, and be able, to +represent to such a meeting, and only beg you not to think me insensible +of the honour done me by your wish, and of the gravity of the trust +reposed in me. + + Ever most faithfully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + THE REV. F. A. MALLESON. + + + + + II + + + BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, + _23rd June, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Walking, and talking, are now alike impossible to +me;[1] my strength is gone for both; nor do I believe talking on such +matters to be of the least use except to promote, between sensible +people, kindly feeling and knowledge of each other's personal +characters. I have every trust in _your_ kindness and truth; nor do I +fear being myself misunderstood by you; what I may be able to put into +written form, so as to admit of being laid before your friends in +council, must be set down without any question of personal feeling--as +simply as a mathematical question or demonstration. + + [1] In answer to the proposal of discussing the subject during a + mountain walk. + +The first exact question which it seems to me such an assembly may be +earnestly called upon by laymen to solve, is surely axiomatic: the +definition of themselves as a body, and of their business as such. + +Namely: as clergymen of the Church of England, do they consider +themselves to be so called merely as the attached servants of a +particular state? Do they, in their quality of guides, hold a position +similar to that of the guides of Chamouni or Grindelwald, who being a +numbered body of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to those +several villages, have nevertheless no Chamounist or Grindelwaldist +opinions on the subject of Alpine geography or glacier walking: but are +prepared to put into practice a common and universal science of Locality +and Athletics, founded on sure survey and successful practice? Are the +clergymen of the Ecclesia of England thus simply the attached and +salaried guides of England and the English, in the way, known of all +good men, that leadeth unto life?--or are they, on the contrary, a body +of men holding, or in any legal manner required, or compelled to hold, +opinions on the subject--say, of the height of the Celestial Mountains, +the crevasses which go down quickest to the pit, and other cognate +points of science,--differing from, or even contrary to, the tenets of +the guides of the Church of France, the Church of Italy, and other +Christian countries? + +Is not this the first of all questions which a Clerical Council has to +answer in open terms? + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + III + + + BRANTWOOD, _6th July, 1879_. + +My first letter contained a Layman's plea for a clear answer to the +question, "What is a clergyman of the Church of England?" Supposing the +answer to this first to be, that the clergy of the Church of England are +teachers, not of the Gospel to England, but of the Gospel to all +nations; and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of the Gospel of +Augustine, but of the Gospel of Christ,--then the Layman's second +question would be: + +Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words and short terms +as that a plain man may understand it?--and, if so, would it not be, in +a quite primal sense, desirable that it should be so, rather than left +to be gathered out of Thirty-nine Articles, written by no means in +clear English, and referring, for further explanation of exactly the +most important point in the whole tenor of their teaching,[2] to a +"Homily of Justification,"[3] which is not generally in the possession, +or even probably within the comprehension, of simple persons? + + Ever faithfully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + [2] Art. xi. + + [3] Homily xi. of the Second Table. + + + + + IV + + + BRANTWOOD, _8th July, 1879_. + +I am so very glad that you approve of the letter plan, as it enables me +to build up what I would fain try to say, of little stones, without +lifting too much for my strength at once; and the sense of addressing a +friend who understands me and sympathizes with me prevents my being +brought to a stand by continual need for apology, or fear of giving +offence. + +But yet I do not quite see why you should feel my asking for a simple +and comprehensible statement of the Christian Gospel as startling. Are +you not bid to go into _all_ the world and preach it to every creature? +(I should myself think the clergyman most likely to do good who accepted +the [Greek: pase te ktisei] so literally as at least to sympathize with +St. Francis' sermon to the birds, and to feel that feeding either sheep +or fowls, or unmuzzling the ox, or keeping the wrens alive in the snow, +would be received by their Heavenly Feeder as the _perfect_ fulfilment +of His "Feed My sheep" in the higher sense.) + +That's all a parenthesis; for although I should think that your good +company would all agree that kindness to animals was a kind of preaching +to them, and that hunting and vivisection were a kind of blasphemy to +them, I want only to put the sterner question before your council, _how_ +this Gospel is to be preached either "[Greek: pantachou]" or to "[Greek: +panta ta ethne]," if first its preachers have not determined quite +clearly what it _is_? And might not such definition, acceptable to the +entire body of the Church of Christ, be arrived at by merely explaining, +in their completeness and life, the terms of the Lord's Prayer--the +first words taught to children all over the Christian world? + +I will try to explain what I mean of its several articles, in following +letters; and in answer to the question with which you close your last, I +can only say that you are at perfect liberty to use any, or all, or any +parts of them, as you think good. Usually, when I am asked if letters of +mine may be printed, I say: "Assuredly, provided only that you print +them entire." But in your hands, I withdraw even this condition, and +trust gladly to your judgment, remaining always + + Faithfully and affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + THE REV. F. A. MALLESON. + + + + + V + + [Greek: pater hemon ho en tois ouranois.] + + _Pater noster qui es in caelis._ + + + BRANTWOOD, _10th July, 1879_. + +My meaning, in saying that the Lord's Prayer might be made a foundation +of Gospel-teaching, was not that it contained all that Christian +ministers have to teach; but that it contains what all Christians are +agreed upon as first to be taught; and that no good parish-working +pastor in any district of the world but would be glad to take his part +in making it clear and living to his congregation. + +And the first clause of it, of course rightly explained, gives us the +ground of what is surely a mighty part of the Gospel--its "first and +great commandment," namely, that we have a Father whom we _can_ love, +and are required to love, and to desire to be with Him in Heaven, +wherever that may be. + +And to declare that we have such a loving Father, whose mercy is over +_all_ His works, and whose will and law is so lovely and lovable that it +is sweeter than honey, and more precious than gold, to those who can +"taste" and "see" that the Lord is Good--this, surely, is a most +pleasant and glorious good message and _spell_ to bring to men--as +distinguished from the evil message and accursed spell that Satan has +brought to the nations of the world instead of it, that they have no +Father, but only "a consuming fire" ready to devour them, unless they +are delivered from its raging flame by some scheme of pardon for all, +for which they are to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the Son. + +Supposing this first article of the true Gospel agreed to, how would the +blessing that closes the epistles of that Gospel become intelligible and +living, instead of dark and dead: "The grace of Christ, and the _love_ +of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost,"--the most _tender_ word +being that used of the Father! + + + + + VI + + [Greek: hagiastheto to onoma sou.] + + _Sanctificetur nomen tuum._ + + + BRANTWOOD, _12th July, 1879_. + +I wonder how many, even of those who honestly and attentively join in +our Church services, attach any distinct idea to the second clause of +the Lord's Prayer--the _first petition_ of it--the first thing that they +are ordered by Christ to seek of their Father? + +Am I unjust in thinking that most of them have little more notion on the +matter than that God has forbidden "bad language," and wishes them to +pray that everybody may be respectful to Him? + +Is it any otherwise with the Third Commandment? Do not most look on it +merely in the light of the statute on swearing? and read the words +"will not hold him guiltless" merely as a passionless intimation that +however carelessly a man may let out a round oath, there really _is_ +something wrong in it? + +On the other hand, can anything be more tremendous than the words +themselves--double-negatived: + + "[Greek: ou gar me katharise ... kurios]"? + +For _other_ sins there is washing;--for this--none! the seventh verse +(Exod. xx.), in the Septuagint, marking the real power rather than the +English, which (I suppose) is literal to the Hebrew. + +To my layman's mind, of practical needs in the present state of the +Church, nothing is so immediate as that of explaining to the +congregation the meaning of being gathered in His name, and having Him +in the midst of them; as, on the other hand, of being gathered in +blasphemy of His name, and having the devil in the midst of +them--presiding over the prayers which have become an abomination. + +For the entire body of the texts in the Gospel against hypocrisy are one +and all nothing but the expansion of the threatening that closes the +Third Commandment. For as "the name whereby He shall be called is THE +LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,"--so the taking that name in vain is the sum of +"the deceivableness of _un_righteousness in them that perish." + +Without dwelling on the possibility--which I do not myself, however, for +a moment doubt--of an honest clergyman's being able actually to prevent +the entrance among his congregation of persons leading openly wicked +lives, could any subject be more vital to the purposes of your meetings +than the difference between the present and the probable state of the +Christian Church which would result, were it more the effort of zealous +parish priests, instead of getting wicked _poor_ people to _come_ to +church, to get wicked rich ones to stay out of it? + +Lest, in any discussion of such question, it might be, as it too often +is, alleged that "the Lord looketh upon the heart," etc, let me be +permitted to say--with as much positiveness as may express my deepest +conviction--that, while indeed it is the Lord's business to look upon +the heart, it is the pastor's to look upon the hands and the lips; and +that the foulest oaths of the thief and the street-walker are, in the +ears of God, sinless as the hawk's cry, or the gnat's murmur, compared +to the responses, in the Church service, on the lips of the usurer and +the adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those +of the outcast ones whom they have made their victims. + +It is for the meeting of Clergymen themselves--not for a layman +addressing them--to ask further, how much the name of God may be taken +in vain, and profaned instead of hallowed--_in_ the pulpit, as well as +under it. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + VII + + [Greek: eltheto he basileia sou.] + + _Adveniat regnum tuum._ + + + BRANTWOOD, _14th July, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Sincere thanks for both your letters and the proofs +sent. Your comment and conducting link, when needed, will be of the +greatest help and value, I am well assured, suggesting what you know +will be the probable feeling of your hearers, and the point that will +come into question. + +Yes, certainly, that "His" in the fourth line[4] was meant to imply that +eternal presence of Christ; as in another passage,[5] referring to the +Creation, "when His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, and +smoothed the slopes of Calvary;" but in so far as we dwell on that +truth, "Hast thou seen _Me_, Philip, and not the Father?"[6] we are not +teaching the people what is specially the Gospel of _Christ_ as having a +distinct function, namely, to _serve_ the Father, and do the Father's +will. And in all His human relations to us, and commands to us, it is as +the Son of Man, not as the "power of God and wisdom of God," that He +acts and speaks. Not as the Power; for _He_ must pray, like one of us. +Not as the Wisdom; for He must not know "if it be possible" His prayer +should be heard. + + [4] In a proof sheet of a book of the Editor's at that time in the + press. + + [5] Referring to the closing sentence of the third paragraph of the + fifth letter, which _seemed_ to express what I felt could not be + Mr. Ruskin's full meaning, I pointed out to him the following + sentence in "Modern Painters:"-- + + "When, in the desert, Jesus was girding Himself for the work of + life, angels of life came and ministered unto Him; now, in the + fair world, when He is girding Himself for the work of death, + the ministrants came to Him from the grave; but from the grave + conquered. One from the tomb under Abarim, which _His_ own hand + had sealed long ago; the other from the rest which He had + entered without seeing corruption." + + On this I made a remark somewhat to the following effect: that I + felt sure Mr. Ruskin regarded the loving work of the Father and of + the Son as _equal_ in the forgiveness of sins and redemption of + mankind; that what is done by the Father is in reality done also by + the Son; and that it is by a mere accommodation to human infirmity + of understanding that the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed to us + in language, inadequate indeed to convey divine truths, but still + the only language possible; and I asked whether some such feeling + was not present in his mind when he used the pronoun "His" in the + above passage from "Modern Painters" of the Son, where it would be + usually understood of the Father; and as a corollary, whether, in + the letter, he does not himself fully recognise the fact of the + redemption of the world by the loving self-sacrifice of the Son + being in entire concurrence with the equally loving will of the + Father. This, as well as I can recollect, is the origin of the + passage in the second paragraph in this seventh letter.--EDITOR OF + LETTERS. + + [6] "Yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath + seen the Father" (John xiv. 9).--EDITOR. + +And in what I want to say of the third clause of His prayer (_His_, not +merely as His ordering, but His using), it is especially this comparison +between _His_ kingdom, and His Father's, that I want to see the +disciples guarded against. I believe very few, even of the most earnest, +using that petition, realize that it is the Father's--not the +Son's--kingdom, that they pray may come,--although the whole prayer is +foundational on that fact: "_For_ Thine is the kingdom, the power, and +the glory." And I fancy that the mind of the most faithful Christian is +quite led away from its proper hope, by dwelling on the reign--or the +coming again--of Christ; which, indeed, they are to look for, and +_watch_ for, but not to pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greater +kingdom to which He, risen and having all His enemies under His feet, is +to surrender _His_, "that God may be All in All." + +And, though the greatest, it is that everlasting kingdom which the +poorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten Christ's coming. "Of the day +and the hour, knoweth no man." But the kingdom of God is as a grain of +mustard-seed:--we can sow of it; it is as a foam-globe of leaven:--we +can mingle it; and its glory and its joy are that even the birds of the +air can lodge in the branches thereof. + +Forgive me for getting back to my sparrows; but truly in the present +state of England, the fowls of the air are the only creatures, tormented +and murdered as they are, that yet have here and there nests, and peace, +and joy in the Holy Ghost. And it would be well if many of us, in +reading that text, "The kingdom of God is NOT meat and drink," had even +got so far as to the understanding that it is at least _as much_, and +that until we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to inspire +the unhappy. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + +I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of Christ[7] you +have sent me in a private letter. I may say at once that I am sure it +will do much good, and will be upright and intelligible, which how few +religious writings are? + + [7] The Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Ward and Lock. + + + + + VIII + + [Greek: genetheto to thelema sou, hos en ourano, kai epi ges.] + + _Fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra._ + + + BRANTWOOD, _9th August, 1879_. + +I was reading the second chapter of Malachi this morning by chance, and +wondering how many clergymen ever read it, and took to heart the +"commandment for _them_." + +For they are always ready enough to call themselves priests (though they +know themselves to be nothing of the sort), whenever there is any +dignity to be got out of the title; but, whenever there is any good, +hot scolding or unpleasant advice given them by the prophets, in that +self-assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as ever +Dionysus his lion-skin, when he finds the character of Herakles +inconvenient. + +"Ye have wearied the Lord with your words;" (yes, and some of His people +too, in your time), "yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied Him? When ye +say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He +delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" + +How many, again and again I wonder, of the lively young ecclesiastics +supplied to the increasing demand of our west ends of flourishing Cities +of the Plain, ever consider what sort of sin it is for which God (unless +they lay it to heart) will "curse their blessings, and spread dung upon +their faces;" or have understood, even in the dimmest manner, what part +_they_ had taken, and were taking, in "corrupting the covenant of the +Lord with Levi, and causing many to stumble at the Law." + +Perhaps the most subtle and unconscious way in which the religious +teachers upon whom the ends of the world are come, have done this, is in +never telling their people the meaning of the clause in the Lord's +Prayer, which, of all others, their most earnest hearers have oftenest +on their lips: "Thy will be done." They allow their people to use it as +if their Father's will were always to kill their babies, or do something +unpleasant to them; and following comfort and wealth, instead of +explaining to them that the first and intensest article of their +Father's will was their own sanctification; and that the one only path +to national prosperity and to domestic peace, was to understand what the +will of the Lord was, and to do all they could to get it done. Whereas +one would think, by the tone of the eagerest preachers nowadays, that +they held their blessed office to be that, not of showing men how to do +their Father's will on earth, but how to get to heaven without doing any +of it either here or there! + +I say, especially, the most eager preachers; for nearly the whole +Missionary body (with the hottest Evangelistic sect of the English +Church) is at this moment composed of men who think the Gospel they are +to carry to mend the world with, forsooth, is that, "If any man sin, he +hath an Advocate with the Father;" while I have never yet, in my own +experience, met either with a Missionary or a Town Bishop who so much +as professed himself "to understand what the will of the Lord" was, far +less to teach anybody else to do it; and for fifty preachers, yes, and +fifty hundreds whom I have heard proclaiming the Mediator of the New +Testament, that "they which were called might receive the promise of +eternal inheritance," I have never yet heard so much as _one_ heartily +proclaiming against all those "deceivers with vain words" (Eph. v. 6), +that "no covetous person which is an idolater, hath _any_ inheritance in +the kingdom of Christ, or of God;" and on myself personally and publicly +challenging the Bishops of England generally, and by name the Bishop of +Manchester, to say whether usury was, or was not, according to the will +of God, I have received no answer from any one of them.[8] + + [8] Fors Clavigera, Letter lxxxii., p. 323. + + + + _13th August._ + +I have allowed myself, in the beginning of this letter, to dwell on the +equivocal use of the word "Priest" in the English Church (see +"Christopher Harvey," Grosart's edition, p. 38), because the assumption +of the mediatorial, in defect of the pastoral, office by the clergy +fulfils itself, naturally and always, in their pretending to absolve the +sinner from his punishment, instead of purging him from his sin; and +practically, in their general patronage and encouragement of all the +iniquity of the world, by steadily preaching away the penalties of it. +So that the great cities of the earth, which ought to be the places set +on its hills, with the Temple of the Lord in the midst of them, to which +the tribes should go up,--centres to the Kingdoms and Provinces of +Honour, Virtue, and the Knowledge of the law of God,--have become, +instead, loathsome centres of fornication and covetousness--the smoke of +their sin going up into the face of heaven like the furnace of Sodom, +and the pollution of it rotting and raging through the bones and the +souls of the peasant people round them, as if they were each a volcano +whose ashes broke out in blains upon man and upon beast. + +And in the midst of them, their freshly-set-up steeples ring the crowd +to a weekly prayer that the rest of their lives may be pure and holy, +while they have not the slightest intention of purifying, sanctifying, +or changing their lives in any the smallest particular; and their clergy +gather, each into himself, the curious dual power, and Janus-faced +majesty in mischief, of the prophet that prophesies falsely, and the +priest that bears rule by his means. + +And the people love to have it so. + + + + + BRANTWOOD, _12th August_. + +I am very glad of your little note from Brighton. I thought it needless +to send the two letters there, which you will find at home; and they +pretty nearly end all _I_ want to say; for the remaining clauses of the +prayer touch on things too high for me. But I will send you one +concluding letter about them. + + + + + IX + + [Greek: ton arton hemon ton epiousion dos hemin semeron.] + + _Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie._ + + + BRANTWOOD, _19th August_. + +I retained the foregoing letter by me till now, lest you should think it +written in any haste or petulance: but it is every word of it +deliberate, though expressing the bitterness of twenty years of vain +sorrow and pleading concerning these things. Nor am I able to write, +otherwise, anything of the next following clause of the prayer;--for no +words could be burning enough to tell the evils which have come on the +world from men's using it thoughtlessly and blasphemously, praying God +to give them what they are deliberately resolved to steal. For all true +Christianity is known--as its Master was--in breaking of bread, and all +false Christianity in stealing it. + +Let the clergyman only apply--with impartial and level sweep--to his +congregation the great pastoral order: "The man that will not work, +neither should he eat;" and be resolute in requiring each member of his +flock to tell him _what_--day by day--they do to earn their +dinners;--and he will find an entirely new view of life and its +sacraments open upon him and them. + +For the man who is not--day by day--doing work which will earn his +dinner, must be stealing his dinner; and the actual fact is, that the +great mass of men calling themselves Christians do actually live by +robbing the poor of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever; and +the simple examination of the mode of the produce and consumption of +European food--who digs for it, and who eats it--will prove that to any +honest human soul. + +Nor is it possible for any Christian Church to exist but in pollutions +and hypocrisies beyond all words, until the virtues of a life moderate +in its self-indulgence, and wide in its offices of temporal ministry to +the poor, are insisted on as the normal conditions in which, only, the +prayer to God for the harvest of the earth is other than blasphemy. + +In the second place. Since in the parable in Luke, the bread asked for +is shown to be also, and chiefly, the Holy Spirit (Luke xi. 13), and the +prayer, "Give us each day our daily bread" is, in its fulness, the +disciples' "Lord, evermore give us _this_ bread,"--the clergyman's +question to his whole flock, primarily literal, "Children, have ye here +any meat?" must ultimately be always the greater spiritual one: +"Children, have ye here any Holy Spirit?" or, "Have ye not heard yet +whether there _be_ any? and, instead of a Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver +of Life, do you only believe in an unholy mammon, Lord and Giver of +Death?" + +The opposition between the two Lords has been, and will be as long as +the world lasts, absolute, irreconcilable, mortal; and the clergyman's +first message to his people of this day is--if he be faithful--"Choose +ye this day, whom ye will serve." + + Ever faithfully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + X + + [Greek: kai aphes hemin ta opheilemata hemon, hos kai + hemeis aphiemen tois opheiletais hemon.] + + _Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus + debitoribus nostris._ + + + BRANTWOOD, _3rd September_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I have been very long before trying to say so much +as a word about the sixth clause of the Pater; for whenever I began +thinking of it, I was stopped by the sorrowful sense of the hopeless +task you poor clergymen had, nowadays, in recommending and teaching +people to love their enemies, when their whole energies were already +devoted to swindling their friends. + +But, in any days, past or now, the clause is one of such difficulty, +that, to understand it, means almost to know the love of God which +passeth knowledge. + +But, at all events, it is surely the pastor's duty to prevent his flock +from _mis_-understanding it; and above all things to keep them from +supposing that God's forgiveness is to be had simply for the asking, by +those who "wilfully sin after they have received the knowledge of the +truth." + +There is one very simple lesson, also, needed especially by people in +circumstances of happy life, which I have never heard fully enforced +from the pulpit, and which is usually the more lost sight of, because +the fine and inaccurate word "trespasses" is so often used instead of +the simple and accurate one, "debts." Among people well educated and +happily circumstanced, it may easily chance that long periods of their +lives pass without any such conscious sin as could, on any discovery or +memory of it, make them cry out, in truth and in pain, "I have sinned +against the Lord." But scarcely an hour of their happy days can pass +over them without leaving--were their hearts open--some evidence written +there that they have "left undone the things that they ought to have +done," and giving them bitterer and heavier cause to cry and cry +again--for ever, in the pure words of their Master's prayer, "Dimitte +nobis _debita_ nostra." + +In connection with the more accurate translation of "debts," rather than +"trespasses," it would surely be well to keep constantly in the mind of +complacent and inoffensive congregations, that in Christ's own prophecy +of the manner of the last judgment, the condemnation is pronounced only +on the sins of omission: "I was hungry, and ye gave Me no meat." + +But, whatever the manner of sin, by offence or defect, which the +preacher fears in his people, surely he has of late been wholly remiss +in compelling their definite recognition of it, in its several and +personal particulars. Nothing in the various inconsistency of human +nature is more grotesque than its willingness to be taxed with any +quantity of sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation of +having committed the smallest parcel of them in detail. And the English +Liturgy, evidently drawn up with the amiable intention of making +religion as pleasant as possible to a people desirous of saving their +souls with no great degree of personal inconvenience, is perhaps in no +point more unwholesomely lenient than in its concession to the popular +conviction that we may obtain the present advantage, and escape the +future punishment, of any sort of iniquity, by dexterously concealing +the manner of it from man, and triumphantly confessing the quantity of +it to God. + +Finally, whatever the advantages and decencies of a form of prayer, and +how wide soever the scope given to its collected passages, it cannot be +at one and the same time fitted for the use of a body of well-taught and +experienced Christians, such as should join the services of a Church +nineteen centuries old,--and adapted to the needs of the timid sinner +who has that day first entered its porch, or of the remorseful publican +who has only recently become sensible of his call to a pew. + +And surely our clergy need not be surprised at the daily increasing +distrust in the public mind of the efficacy of Prayer, after having so +long insisted on their offering supplication, _at least_ every Sunday +morning at eleven o'clock, that the rest of their lives hereafter might +be pure and holy, leaving them conscious all the while that they would +be similarly required to inform the Lord next week, at the same hour, +that "there was no health in them"! + +Among the much rebuked follies and abuses of so-called "Ritualism," none +that I have heard of are indeed so dangerously and darkly "Ritual" as +this piece of authorized mockery of the most solemn act of human life, +and only entrance of eternal life--Repentance. + + Believe me, dear Mr. Malleson, + Ever faithfully and respectfully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + XI + + [Greek: kai me eisenegkes hemas eis peirasmon, alla rhusai hemas apo + tou ponerou; hoti sou estin he basileia kai he dunamis kai he doxa + eis tous aionas; amen.] + + _Et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a malo; Quia tuum + est regmum, potentia, et gloria in saecula saeculorum. Amen._ + + + + BRANTWOOD, _14th September, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--The gentle words in your last letter referring to +the difference between yourself and me in the degree of hope with which +you could regard what could not but appear to the general mind Utopian +in designs for the action of the Christian Church, surely might best be +answered by appeal to the consistent tone of the prayer we have been +examining. + +Is not every one of its petitions for a perfect state? and is not this +last clause of it, of which we are to think to-day--if fully +understood--a petition not only for the restoration of Paradise, but of +Paradise in which there shall be no deadly fruit, or, at least, no +tempter to praise it? And may we not admit that it is probably only for +want of the earnest use of this last petition, that not only the +preceding ones have become formal with us, but that the private and +simply restricted prayer for the little things we each severally desire, +has become by some Christians dreaded and unused, and by others used +faithlessly, and therefore with disappointment? + +And is it not for want of this special directness and simplicity of +petition, and of the sense of its acceptance, that the whole nature of +prayer has been doubted in our hearts, and disgraced by our lips; that +we are afraid to ask God's blessing on the earth, when the scientific +people tell us He has made previous arrangements to curse it; and that, +instead of obeying, without fear or debate, the plain order, "Ask, and +ye shall receive, that your joy may be full," we sorrowfully sink back +into the apology for prayer, that "it is a wholesome exercise, even when +fruitless," and that we ought piously always to suppose that the text +really means no more than "Ask, and ye shall _not_ receive, that your +joy may be _empty_"? + +Supposing we were first all of us quite sure that we _had_ prayed, +honestly, the prayer against temptation, and that we would thankfully be +refused anything we had set our hearts upon, if indeed God saw that it +would lead us into evil, might we not have confidence afterwards that He +in whose hand the King's heart is, as the rivers of water, would turn +our tiny little hearts also in the way that they should go, and that +_then_ the special prayer for the joys He taught them to seek, would be +answered to the last syllable, and to overflowing? + +It is surely scarcely necessary to say, farther, what the holy teachers +of all nations have invariably concurred in showing,--that faithful +prayer implies always correlative exertion; and that no man can ask +honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation, unless he has +himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out +of it. But, in modern days, the first aim of all Christian parents is to +place their children in circumstances where the temptations (which they +are apt to call "opportunities") may be as great and as many as +possible; where the sight and promise of "all these things" in Satan's +gift may be brilliantly near; and where the act of "falling down to +worship me" may be partly concealed by the shelter, and partly excused, +as involuntary, by the pressure, of the concurrent crowd. + +In what respect the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of _them_, +differ from the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, which are God's for +ever, is seldom, as far as I have heard, intelligibly explained from the +pulpit; and still less the irreconcilable hostility between the two +royalties and realms asserted in its sternness of decision. + +Whether it be indeed Utopian to believe that the kingdom we are taught +to pray for _may_ come--verily come--for the asking, it is surely not +for man to judge; but it is at least at his choice to resolve that he +will no longer render obedience, nor ascribe glory and power, to the +Devil. If he cannot find strength in himself to advance towards Heaven, +he may at least say to the power of Hell, "Get thee behind me;" and +staying himself on the testimony of Him who saith, "Surely I come +quickly," ratify his happy prayer with the faithful "Amen, even so, +come, Lord Jesus." + + Ever, my dear friend, + Believe me affectionately + and gratefully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + ESSAYS AND COMMENTS + + ON THE + + FOREGOING LETTERS + + BY THE EDITOR + + + + + ESSAYS AND COMMENTS + + +Feeling deeply, and anxiously, the greatness of the responsibility laid +upon me to act, as it were, the part of an envoy between so eminent a +teacher as Mr. Ruskin and my brethren in the Ministry, I have thought +that it might not be taken amiss if I prefaced my account of the origin +of the series of letters placed in my hands for publication (see Letter +8th July, 1879)[9] with just a mere allusion to one written to me four +years ago. + + [9] No. IV. + +One or two imperfect conversations, leading up to the subject of the +Resurrection, which had been broken off by accidental circumstances, +together with the letter alluded to, had stimulated in me a feeling of +something more than curiosity--rather one of anxious interest--to learn +more of Mr. Ruskin's views upon matters which are at the present day +giving rise to a good deal of agitated discussion among intellectual +men. + +I am thankful to be able to avow that, for my own part, I am a firm and +conscientious, not a thoughtless and passive, believer in the doctrines +of the Church of Christ as held by the majority of serious-minded +religious men in the Established Church. Mr. Ruskin was mistaken in his +much too ready assumption that I (simply because I am a clergyman) am a +believer on compulsion; that for the peace of my soul I have only to +thank religious anaesthetics, and that I ever preach against the +wickedness of involuntary doubt. God forbid that I should ever take on +myself to denounce as wilful sin any scruples of conscience which owe +their origin to honest inquiries after truth. I trust that he knows me +better now. + +Feeling thus decided and certain as to the ground I stand upon, and +earnestly desirous on every account to investigate the nature of Mr. +Ruskin's doubts, whatever they might be, in a most fraternal spirit, as +a kindly-favoured friend and neighbour (for, in our lake and mountain +district, an interval of a dozen miles does not destroy neighbourhood +between spirits with any degree of kinship), I sought for a more +lengthened conversation, and obtained the opportunity without +difficulty. The occasion was found in a very delightful summer afternoon +on the lake, and up the sides of the Old Man of Coniston, to view a +group of remarkable rocks by the desolate, storm-beaten crags of Goat's +Water,[10] that saddest and loneliest of mountain tarns, which lies in +the deep hollow between the mountain and its opposing buttress, the Dow +Crags. This most interesting ramble in the undivided company of one so +highly and so deservedly valued in the world of letters and of art and +higher matters yet, served to my mind for more purposes than one, while +we wandered amidst impressive scenes, passing from the sweet and gentle +peaceful loveliness of the bright green vale of Coniston and its +charming lake to the bleak desolation, the terrible sublimity of the +mountain tarn barriered in by its stupendous crags, amongst which lay +those singular-looking, weather-beaten, and lightning-riven rocks which +were the more immediate object of our visit. + + [10] "Deucalion," p. 222. + +But to myself the chief and happiest result of our conversation was the +firm conviction that neither the censorious and unthinking world, nor +perhaps even Mr. Ruskin himself, knows how deeply and truly a Christian +man, in the widest sense of the word, Mr. Ruskin is. It is neither the +time nor the place, nor indeed would it be consistent with propriety, to +analyze before others the convictions formed on that memorable summer +afternoon. It must suffice for the present to say that the opinions then +formed laid the foundation of a friendship on a happier basis than that +which had heretofore been permitted me, and prepared my way to enter +with confidence upon the plan of which the present volume is the fruit. + +Last June, in the course of a short visit to Brantwood, I proposed to +Mr. Ruskin to come to address the members of a Northern Clerical +Society, a body of some seventy or eighty clergy, who have done me the +honour to appoint me their honorary secretary, now for about nine +years, since its foundation. On the ground of impaired health, the +legacy left behind it by the serious illness which had, two years +before, threatened even his life, Mr. Ruskin excused himself from +appearing in person before our Society; but proposed instead to write +letters to me which might serve as a basis for discussion amongst us. + +Letter I. will explain the origin of the series that come after. + + + + + ON LETTER II + + +The question laid down in this letter, cleared of all metaphorical +ornament, is, as is perfectly natural and instinctive with Mr. Ruskin, +one which goes down to the foundation of things--here, the character and +mission of the Christian ministry. Are we (Mr. Ruskin implies, Are we +_not_?) bound to believe and to teach after certain formulae, which, +being many of them peculiar to ourselves, separate us from the national +Churches of France and Italy? Are we free, or are we bound? Or do we +enjoy a reasonable amount of liberty and no more? On the platform we +occupy do we allow none but English Churchmen to stand? Must we keep all +other Christians at arm's length? Do the conditions attached to the +emoluments we receive prohibit us from holding or teaching any other +opinions than those we have subscribed to? + +It is a question not to be approached without a tremor. But no abstract +answer can well be given. Human nature replies for itself in the +spectacle of the clergy of the Church of England divided and subdivided; +here deeply sundered, there of different complexions amicably blending +together, holding every variety of opinion which the Church allows or +disallows within her borders. Human nature absolutely refuses to be +shackled in its positive beliefs. Authority may try, or even appear to +perform, the feat of fettering thought and making men march in step to +one common end in orderly ranks; but she has invariably at last to +confess her impotence.[11] + + [11] The clergyman who subscribes still whispers to himself, or + soon will, "Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri." + +The ministers of the Church cannot safely be set free by Act of +Parliament to teach whatever seems good to each. Some respect must be +shown to congregations too. If the clergy claim on their side the right +of independent thought, which they are quite justified in doing, the +congregations on their side have a much greater right to a consistent +teaching, which shall not distract their minds with strange and unwonted +forms of Christianity. + +Mr. Ruskin, as he often does, is going _too deep_. He asks for that +which we shall never see in this world,--the simple, pure religion of +the Bible to be taught in all singleness and simplicity of mind by men +whose only commission is held from God, by or without the channel of +human authority, to show men, women, and children the way "to the summit +of the celestial mountains," and to set an awful warning by conspicuous +beacons against the "crevasses which go down quickest to the pit." But +who shall say that he is wrong? Nay, rather, it is we that are wrong in +resting satisfied with our low views of things, while Ruskin soars above +our heads. + + + + + ON LETTER III + + +I would preface the few remarks I wish to make upon this letter by an +extract from a letter just received from a dear good friend: + + "I have already read these deeply interesting letters five times. + They are like 'the foam-globes of leaven.' I must say they have + exercised my mind very much. Things in them which at first seem + rather startling, prove on closer examination to be full of deep + truth. The suggestions in them lead to 'great searchings of heart.' + There is much with which I entirely agree; much over which to + ponder. What an insight into human nature is shown in the remark + that though we are so ready to call ourselves 'miserable sinners' + we resent being accused of any special fault! + + "S. B." + +By the side of this, it will be instructive, though strange, if I place +an extract from another note from one whom I have long known and highly +esteemed; and it will be seen what a singular "discerner of hearts" and +"divider of spirits" is this series of letters:-- + + "If they are really meant _au serieux_, I could not express any + opinion of them without implying a reflection upon you also, as you + seem to endorse them so fully. I prefer, therefore, to say merely + that, as a whole, they offer one of the most remarkable instances I + ever met with of the old adage, 'Ne sutor ultra crepidam.'"[12] + + [12] Let me say here, once for all, that I have already three times + had this proverb quoted against Mr. Ruskin; and no proverb could be + more remote from the purpose. For while it is the shoemaker's + business, _as a livelihood_, to make shoes, a painter's to paint + pictures, the merchant's to sell goods, and perhaps Mr. Ruskin's to + write books which every one reads, _religion is everybody's + business_. Christian men and women, of all classes and professions, + make the Bible their study, because of its inestimable importance; + and who shall say that they are not absolutely right? For my part I + should be very glad to hear that my bootmaker was a religious man: + his boots would be none the worse for it. I hope the _sutor_ will + be brought in no more, unless he can appear with a better grace. + + +In spite of this I retain all my old high opinion of the writer of these +lines, and feel convinced that he will soon think very differently. + +Yes, it is as my first correspondent has said, "Things which at first +seem startling, on examination prove to be full of deep truth." In the +short compass of this Letter III. lies enfolded a vast question, which, +in the midst of the friction and conflict of ages of strife, has been +shuffled away into odd corners, to be brought out into life only now and +then, when a man is born into the world who sees what few will even +glance at, and who will say out that which ought to be spoken, though +but few may listen. What is the question which is put here so tersely +and so pointedly? It is this, which I am only putting a little +differently, not with the most distant idea of improving upon Mr. +Ruskin's felicitous touches; but, because expressed in twofold fashion, +what has escaped one may strike another in a different form. + +Is a clergyman of the Church of England a teacher of the doctrine and +practice and discipline of the Church of England within her limits only, +narrow as they are, when compared with Christendom? or is there not +rather a wider, more comprehensive Church yet--that of Christ upon +earth--which he must serve, which he must preach, in forgetfulness of +the limited boundaries within which by his education and his ordination +vows he is _apparently_ bound to remain? Is there not enough of +Christianity common to all the Christian nations upon earth, and which +ought to be made the subject of teaching to the ignorant and the +castaway? Is it quite a right thing that the natives of Madagascar, for +instance, should see parties of missionaries arriving amongst them: one, +in all the gorgeous trappings and with all the elaborate ritual of Rome; +another in rusty black coats and hats and dirty white neckties, +repudiating all but the very barest necessary ceremonial; a third, +possibly disunited in itself, coming as High Churchmen or Low Churchmen, +with differing peculiarities? Is this an edifying spectacle for the +Malagasy? And can the Gospel be preached as effectually in this highly +diversified fashion as it would be with the simplicity of a reasonable +and just sufficiently elastic uniformity? + +Coming before many people of infinite diversity of mind, it cannot be +doubted that Christianity must necessarily take a variety of forms, to +suit different intelligences, and adapt itself to differing situations. +But in all this large variety of forms of religion, ranging from mere +paganism at one end, just a little unavoidably altered by the contact of +Christianity, and at the other extremity a pure religion, but refined +and intellectual, I do not see exactly what is the form of Christianity +which the Church of England is to preach to the masses at home and +abroad. As long as England takes the Gospel to the ignorant in such +infinitely diversified forms, it is as if an incapable general were to +divide his forces preparatory to an assault upon a compact and +well-defended stronghold. + +It is enough to make one weep with vexation and humiliation to see what +sort of religion would be presented to the world if some who claim to +have all truth on their side could have their own way. I say to have the +truth on their side,--which is a very different thing from being on the +side of truth. There is even a new religion--for it is certainly not the +old--growing popular with "thinkers," who write and read in the three +great half-crown monthlies, which is evolved in the most curious +variety out of their inner consciousness by religion-makers, whose +fertile brains are the only soil that can bring forth such productions. +What is the vast uneducated world to do with these extraordinary forms +of religion which are as many-sided and many-faced as their inventors? + +Now Mr. Ruskin and many others see this state of things with pity and +compassion, and ask, "Cannot this Gospel of Christ be put into such +plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it?" Why +is there no such easy summary provided by authority to teach the poor +and simple? The Apostles' Creed is good for its own end and purpose, but +it requires great expansion to be made to include Gospel teaching, and +it contains nothing practical. The Thirty-nine Articles are not even +intended (as Mr. Ruskin by some oversight seems to think they are) to be +a summary of the Gospel. We have no concise and plain, clear and +intelligible form of sound words to answer this most important end. The +Church Catechism, from old associations, belongs to childhood. + +Every reasonable person must agree with Mr. Ruskin, that there could be +no harm, but much good, in Christians making a little less of their +Churchmanship, and a little more of their broad Christianity. + + + + + ON LETTER IV + + +Mr. Ruskin pleads in this letter with touching eloquence for the +guidance of the law of love, that irresistible law, one effect of which +is to give to the highest probability the force of a sufficient +certainty, and establishes in the man the mental habit best described as +_certitude_. + +In Cardinal Newman's "History of My Religious Opinions," p. 18, he +quotes some beautiful passages from Keble's conversations with himself +(disagreeing with him all the time), in which he had quoted, "I will +guide thee _with mine eye_" (Psalm xxxii. 8), as the expression of the +gentle suasive power that directs the steps of the child and friend of +God, as distinguished from "the bit and bridle" laid upon horse and +mule, who represent unwilling slaves recognising no law but that of +force or coercion. It is an Eye whose gaze is ever fixed on us, the "Eye +of God's Word," "like that of a portrait uniformly fixed on us, turn +where we will."[13] And Keble is right so far as concerns the true +children and friends of God, subject, as their highest control, to the +law of love. Pure and exalted minds ever strain for, and yearn after, a +general and outward manifestation of the witness that man is "the image +and glory of God" (1 Cor. xi. 7). + + [13] "Christian Year," St. Bartholomew's Day, with quotations from + Miller's Bampton Lectures. + +Unhappily, we are not so constituted by nature. The inroads and ravages +of sin are but too evident, as well in those upon whom episcopal hands +have been laid, as in the ranks of the laity. Are not wilfulness and +pride of intellect and glorification of self ever exercising such a +power in the earth, that checks and restraints are found absolutely +necessary to curb and control the determination of many of the ministers +of the Church not only to _think_ as seems good to them (which they have +a perfect right to do), but openly to _teach and to preach_ whatever +doctrines they may have conceived in their own minds, or have learnt +from others, contrary to the received doctrines of the Church of +England; which they have no right to do as long as they remain ministers +of the Church whose doctrines they impugn? + +Mr. Ruskin correctly assumes that the terms of the Lord's Prayer, being +in the very words of Christ, do contain a body of Divine doctrine; and +they would be the fittest to adopt as a standard of Christian teaching, +_if_ only all men were as candid, sincere, and straightforward as +himself. But because there is no certainty that any large and +preponderating body of men will exhibit these graces of Christianity in +themselves, and combine with them gentleness, tolerance, and +forbearance, therefore they _must_ be held in "with bit and +bridle,"--that is, with Articles and Creeds and declarations,--"lest +they fall upon thee," and fill the Church more full of sedition, +disaffection, and disquiet than it already is. + +Cardinal Newman himself is an example of the necessity of the restraints +of creeds, as well, indeed, as of their general inefficiency to +maintain unity. His "History of my Religious Opinions," at least in its +beginning, is but the story of a long succession of phases of belief and +disbelief, originating in--what? In study of the Word of God? in Divine +contemplation, or in devout and thoughtful meditation? No, indeed; but +in walks and conversations, now with one friend, now with another, now +round the Quadrangle of Oriel, then in Christ Church meadows; in +fanciful, and apparently causeless, changes in his own mind, of which +sometimes he can give the exact date, sometimes he has forgotten it, but +which lead him out of one set of opinions into another in a helpless +kind of way, as if he knew of no motive power but the influence of other +men's minds or the momentary and fitful fluctuations of a spirit ever +too much given to introspection to maintain a steady and uniform course. + +What a contrast between the downright, manly straightforwardness of a +Ruskin and the fluttering, uncertain flights of a Newman, ending in the +cold, dead fixity of the Roman faith, whereof to doubt is to be damned! + + + + + ON LETTER V + + +The next paragraph to the last in this letter, contains a statement +which at first might seem to be rashly expressed. But I was not long in +apprehending that when Mr. Ruskin alludes to a scheme of pardon "for +which we are supposed to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the +Son," he was far from impugning that doctrine of the Atonement in which, +as it is generally understood among Christian people, the whole plan of +salvation centres. + +But there seems to have been a fatality about this sentence. Numbers +have read it and commented upon it, myself amongst the number, as if Mr. +Ruskin were here expressing _his own view_; instead of which, he is here +quoting other men's opinions, to condemn them with severity. The +_Record_ called it some of Mr. Ruskin's dross; but it is other people's +dross, for which he would offer us pure gold. + +I happened, a very short time previous to receiving this letter, to have +had my attention attracted by the following passage of Mr. Ruskin's +own:--"When, in the desert, He was girding Himself for the work of life, +angels of life came and ministered to Him; now, in the fair world, when +He is girding Himself for the work of death [at the Transfiguration], +the ministrants came to Him from the grave. But from the grave +conquered. One from that tomb under Abarim, which His own hand had +sealed long ago; the other from the rest which He had entered without +seeing corruption." + +Pleased with the truthful eloquence of this passage, I placed it at the +head of the chapter on the Transfiguration in my book on the Life and +Work of Christ (still in the press). Having done so, it struck me that +Mr. Ruskin, whether intentionally or undesignedly, had made the pronoun +"His" to apply either to God the Father, or to God the Son. It may +grammatically refer to either. From this I drew the conclusion which I +expressed in a short letter to my friend, that, discarding the strictly +human uses of language, which, from its unavoidable poverty, lacks the +power of marking the true nature of the difference between the Divine +Persons of the Holy Trinity, he had spoken of the Father and of the Son +indiscriminately or indifferently, _i.e._, without a difference. + +And so it really is. How shall a man, though at the highest he be "but a +little lower than the angels," know and comprehend the Godhead in its +true and exact nature? The names father and son express an earthly +relation perfectly well understood when belonging to ourselves, but when +applied to the Supreme Divine Being, they must of necessity fall far +short of expressing their true connexion with one another. They are, +when applied to Heavenly beings, merely anthropomorphic terms used in +compassion to our infirmities, and conveying to us only an approximation +to the ideas intended. We say the Father sent the Son; the Son suffered +for our sins. But since Father and Son are One, we are plainly +expressing something short of the exact state of the case when we speak +of our thankfulness to the Son as if we had no reason to be equally +thankful to the Father. + +The Athanasian Creed makes no great demand upon our mental powers when +it requires of us, in speaking of the Trinity, neither to confound the +Persons nor to divide the Substance; for, in truth, I suppose we are +equally incapable of doing either. + +These are Divine matters, of which, while the simplest may know enough, +the wisest can never fathom the whole depth. For the Divine power and +love, knowledge and compassion, will never be fully comprehended until +we know even as we are known. + +But, as I am abstaining from questioning Mr. Ruskin as to his meaning in +any passage, if it happens to be slightly obscure, awaiting his reply at +the close of the book, I may here say that I believe that this sentence +refers to a wild and unscriptural kind of preaching, happily becoming +less common, in which undue stress is laid upon the wrathfulness of God, +as contrasted with the mercy of the Saviour, as if we had only the Son +to thank, and not our loving Father in Heaven, for the blessed hope of +eternal life. Some there are, and always will be, who habitually err in +not rightly dividing the Word of God, and giving undue prominence to a +dark portion of doctrine, which is true enough in itself, but would be +relieved of much of its gloom, if due prominence were given to other +parts of the truth of God. + +I do not mean to praise caution at the expense of courage. I have a +constitutional aversion to that caution allied to timidity and cowardice +which prompts a man to look to his safety, comfort, and worldly repute +as the first social law that concerns _him_. I admire rather the brave +man who is ready to sacrifice all that, if he can, by so doing, gain the +desired right end. + +But in the case before us, it is not so. Men talk as if all we had to do +to convert a sinner from the error of his way was to give him a good +talking, forgetting that we have not a plastic material to work upon, +but a most stubborn and intractable one, wherever interest is concerned; +and that a bold bad man is generally proof against talk, and yields to +no power but the grace of God exercised directly, and seconded by His +heavy judgments. Have we not all seen, with shame and astonishment, the +"wicked rich" regularly in their places at church, much oftener than the +"wicked poor," who have less interest in playing the hypocrite? And +have we not felt our utter powerlessness, whether by public preaching or +by private monition, to find a way to those case-hardened hearts? What +are we to do with such a man as Tennyson describes in "Sea Dreams," who + + "began to bloat himself, and ooze + All over with the fat affectionate smile + That makes the widow lean;" + +when his victim-- + + "Pursued him down the street, and far away, + Among the honest shoulders of the crowd, + Read rascal in the motions of his back, + And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee." + +Here is all that we can do--told us in the last sweet lines:-- + + "'She sleeps: let us too, let all evil, sleep. + He also sleeps--another sleep than ours. + He can do no more wrong: forgive him, dear, + And I shall sleep the sounder!' + Then the man, + 'His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come; + Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: + I do forgive him.' + 'Thanks, my love,' she said, + 'Your own will be the sweeter;' and they slept." + + + + + ON LETTER VI + + +As is the manner of our friend, he concludes a letter which was begun +with thoughtful wisdom, with a proposal which, if gravely made, will +seem to most of us both unpractical and impracticable. + +Very forcible and very true is the emphatic declaration here made of the +deep, perhaps unpardonable sinfulness of taking in vain the holy name of +God. + +But, to my mind, the irremediable fault in the latter proposition in +this letter is the assumption that every honest clergyman of average +capacity, and of ordinary experience of life, is, of course, wise enough +to discern men's characters and to judge them with that unerring +sagacity that will enable him to pronounce without favour or distinction +of persons the severe sentence: "You shall not enter this house of God. +I interdict your presence here. The comforts and privileges of religion +are for other than thou. I deny thee the prayers, the preaching, and the +sacraments of the Church." More briefly--"I excommunicate thee." + +Even in the case of a very bad man this would be found impossible to +accomplish without the direst danger to the clergyman's usefulness and +influence, to say nothing of his peace. For our experience abundantly +shows that let a bad man but be audacious, and even ruffianly enough, +helped by his position, he will always find plenty of support among the +powerful and influential. The poor and honest clergyman, if he has +attempted to enforce Church discipline, will be gravely rebuked for his +want of charity, for his sad lack of discretion or tact, for his utter +want of worldly wisdom; he will very soon find, to use the familiar +phrase, the place too hot for him, and he may be thankful if he escapes +with some small remainder of respect or compassion from the +nobler-minded of his flock, who are always in a very small minority. + +I know not how it really was in the time when the rubrics of the +Communion Services were framed. One would think, judging from these, +that the clergyman possessed unlimited power to judge and punish with +spiritual deprivation, and that he was alone to unite in himself all the +various offices of accuser and police, counsel, jury, and judge. We are +required to say every Ash Wednesday that we regret the loss of the godly +discipline of the Primitive Church--under which, "at the beginning of +Lent, all such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to +open penance; and that it is much to be wished that the said discipline +may be restored again." But few can seriously view a realization of that +wish without fear for the certain consequences. + +The truth is, the world moves on. Human nature may remain the same; but +the laws and usages of society are subject to changes which it is +useless to withstand. At the present day, great, rather too great, +perhaps, are the claims of _charity_. We are told to hope for the best +in the worst of cases; we are to forgive all, even the still hardened +and unrepenting; we are to smile upon heresy and schism; we are to treat +the rude, the churlish, the hard of heart, amidst our flocks, as if we +had the greatest regard for them! I am not prepared to say that this is +in every way to be regretted; for these are errors that lean perhaps to +virtue's side. But I certainly do think that often a little more +fearlessness in rebuking vice would not come amiss. + +But, on the other hand, suppose for a moment the clergy to have the +undisputed power to bar out both the wicked rich and the wicked poor +from their churches, this power would be of very little use; nay, it +would be full of mischief and danger, without a sound judgment, a +fearless spirit, and a heart little used to the melting mood. The +clergy, as a class, may perhaps be a trifle superior to the laity in +moral character, in spiritual knowledge, and in judgment in dealing with +people, because their profession has early trained (or at any rate, +ought to have trained) them in the constant and imperative exercise of +self-examination and self-control, and the careful discernment of +character in their intercourse with men. But that superiority, if it +exists at all, is so trifling as to make very little impression on the +laity, who would naturally be ready at any step to dispute the wisdom or +expediency of the judicial acts of the clergy. + +Further, again: given both the wisdom to judge and the power to doom, +would it be desirable to establish a rule that the open and notorious +sinner (though there would always be differences of opinion upon what he +really is, even among the clergy themselves) should be prevented from +coming where he might, above all other places, be most likely to hear +words that would touch his heart and bring him to a better mind? From +the pulpit, words of counsel, of holy doctrine, and of heart-stirring +precepts of the Gospel, fall with a power and weight which are rarely to +be found in private conversations. Many an open and notorious sinner has +first yielded up his heart to God under the powerful influence of +preaching. When Jesus sat in the Pharisee's house, all the publicans and +sinners drew near to hear Him; and the orthodox sinners, the Pharisees, +made bitter complaints that He received and ate with the scorned and +rejected sinners. God forbid that the day should ever come when +spiritual pride and exclusiveness shall shut out even the hardest of +sinners from the house of God; for who can tell where or when the word +may be spoken which shall break the stony heart, and replace it with the +tender heart of flesh, soon to be filled with love and devotion to God +the Saviour and Redeemer? + +But, as this is a subject of great importance, may I also say a word in +support of Mr. Ruskin's own view that the wicked should be discouraged, +or even forbidden, to enter the house of God? We have 2 Cor. vi. 14-18, +which seems to point out that, in the primitive Church, the wicked were +not allowed in the assemblies of the faithful. And we remember David's +"I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and will not sit with the +wicked" (Psalm xxvi. 5). Is not Mr. Ruskin, perhaps, after all, only +advocating a return to primitive usage? + +Mr. Ruskin says in the Preface to his selected works: "What I wrote on +religion was painstaking, and I think forcible, as compared with most +religious writing; especially in its frankness and fearlessness." +Unfortunately he adds, "But it was wholly mistaken."[14] He is still +equally outspoken, frank, and fearless; but what he wrote upon religion, +as far as I know it, in the days which he now condemns, will live and do +good, as long as the noble English language, of which he is one of the +greatest masters, lives to convey to distant generations the great +thoughts of the sons that are her proudest boast. + + [14] "Sesame and Lilies," p. iii., 1876. + + + + + ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON THE CENSURES OF THE CHURCH. + + BY THE EDITOR. + + +Since writing my notes on Letter VI., in which Mr. Ruskin gives such +vehement expression to his desire to see the ancient discipline of the +Church restored, I have in conversation with himself learned this to be +one of the objects he has most at heart in writing these letters; and I +have also read in the Life of Bishop Selwyn, by the Rev. H. W. Tucker +(vol. i., p. 241) that admirable prelate's view of this disregarded +question. I believe Selwyn to have been the greatest uninspired +missionary since the days of St. Paul (if indeed we can with truth +consider so great a man wholly uninspired). But the great Bishop of the +South Seas, in the charge from which copious extracts are there given, +distinctly recommends the revival of spiritual discipline and the +censures of the Church upon unrepenting offenders. He refers for +authority to apostolic example and precept, and to the discipline +rubrics of the Communion Service, and adds the undeniable fact that our +Anglican communion is the only branch of the Christian Church where such +discipline is wanting. + +I must ask leave to refer my readers to Mr. Tucker's book for the +grounds in detail of the Bishop's wishes. I am not aware that any +English prelate has ventured upon so hazardous an experiment; one, I +should rather say, so certain to fail disastrously. The infancy of the +Christian Church, and the Divine guidance directly exercised, rendered +such discipline in the first centuries both practicable and +effective.[15] But I do not remember that any parish priest of the +Reformed Church has ever attempted to enforce the Communion rubrics, +except, as we have learned from the public papers, in recent times, with +disastrous consequences to the promoters. And what kind of wickedness is +to be so visited? To prove drunkenness, or impurity, or fraudulent +practices, or false doctrine (Canon 109), a judicial inquiry must be +resorted to. Rebukes for lesser offences would certainly lead to +disputes, if not even to recrimination! The irresistible circumstances +of the age would entirely defeat any such endeavours. In towns, +parochial limits are practically unknown or ignored, and families, or +individuals, attend whatever church or chapel they please, no one +preventing them, thus making all exercise of sacerdotal authority +impracticable. In the country, even where only the parish church is +within reach, it is highly probable that an offender would meet priestly +excommunication by the easy expedient of cutting himself off from +communication with his clergyman and his church; and even if he did not, +it would be a very new state of things if the sentence were received +with submission on the part of the offender, and acquiescence on that of +the congregation. + + [15] As these sheets are passing through the press, I happen to + meet with these words of Bishop Wilberforce:--"The more I have + thought over the matter, the more it seems to me that it was + providentially intended that discipline, in the strictest sense of + that word, should be the restraint of the early Church, and that it + should gradually die out as the Church approached maturity, or + rather turn from a formal and external rule to an inner work in the + spirit--should run into the opening of God's Word and its + application to the individual soul and life."--_Life_, vol. i., p. + 230. + +In short, the thing is simply impossible; and I do not find that even +Bishop Selwyn himself visited immorality with ecclesiastical censures, +or supported his clergy in doing so; and I am using the word +"immorality" in its full and proper sense, and not with that restricted +meaning which confines it to a particular sin. It is true, as he says, +that our Church stands alone in refraining from the exercise of such +power. But in other religious bodies, the discretionary power to use +such dangerous weapons is not left to individuals however gifted. It +rests in a constituted body, on whom the whole responsibility would lie. +But the isolation of the English clergyman in his church and parish +forbids him thus to risk his whole usefulness and his social existence. +Who would confirm him in his judgment? Who would stand by him in the +troubles which he would assuredly entail upon himself? Would his +churchwardens, his rural dean, his archdeacon, or his bishop? I think +there would be little comfort to be found in any of these quarters. + + + + + ON LETTER VII + + +Excellent as is Canon Gray's letter (p. 169), I do not at all concur in +his somewhat severe censure on the second paragraph in this letter, in +which Mr. Ruskin, as I conceive, with complete theological accuracy, +points out how in His human nature our Lord accepted and received some, +perhaps many, of the deficiencies of our nature, human frailty and +weakness, even human _liability_ to sin, without, however, once yielding +to its temptations. I have everywhere in my "Life of Christ" endeavoured +to give reasons for my faith in this view, which, even if held, I know +is not often professed. + +If Christ had been perfectly insensible to the allurements of sin, where +would be His fellow-feeling with us? It would be a mere outward +semblance; nor would there then be any significance in the statement +that "He was in all points tempted like as we are," if He had been able +to view with calm indifference the inducements presented to Him from +time to time to abandon His self-sacrificing work and consult His +safety. The captain is not to go securely armour-plated into the fight +while the private soldier marches in his usual unprotected apparel. Nor +will the Captain of our salvation protect Himself against the dangers +which He invites us to encounter. If He knew nothing of sin from +experience of its power, how could He be an example to us? Therefore I +believe Mr. Ruskin to be perfectly right in affirming that in the words +of Jesus we listen not to one speaking entirely in the Power and Wisdom +of God, but to the Son of Man, bowed down, but not conquered, by +afflictions, firm and unbending in His great purpose to bear in His own +body the sin of the world--Son of Man, yet God Incarnate. + +Nor does it seem to me "a hard way of speaking" when Mr. Ruskin rightly +and plainly affirms the perfect humanity of Christ, which, however, +Canon Gray correctly points out to be assumed and borne in accordance +with His own will as perfect God. I am afraid that, good and kind as he +is, it is Canon Gray himself who is a little hard in unconsciously +imputing thoughts which had no existence in the writer's mind! + +I cannot help being amused at the gravity with which certain critics +shake their heads ominously over the last paragraph in this letter, and +seriously ask, What can Mr. Ruskin mean by the "peace and joy in the +Holy Ghost" enjoyed by the birds? The Poet Laureate would hardly care to +be brought to book for each poetical flight with which he charms his +many appreciative readers, and to be asked to explain exactly what he +means by each of those noble thoughts which are only revealed from soul +to soul, and dissolve into fluid, like the beautiful brittle-star of our +coasts, under the touch of a too curious hand. + +How do we know but that the animal existence of these charming +companions of our quiet hours is not accompanied by a spiritual +existence too, as much inferior to our own spiritual state as their +corporeal to ours? And therefore shall we boldly dare to say that they +perish altogether and for ever? We may neither believe nor disbelieve in +matters kept so completely secret from us. But we must be pardoned for +leaning to a belief that the feathered creatures which spend most of +their brief life in singing loud praises to the loving Creator and Giver +of all good, do not live quite for nothing beyond the dissolution of +their little frames. There are no means of ascertaining this by +scientific experiments, or even by the most ingenious processes of +induction carefully recorded and duly referred to as occasion may arise. +But certainly it is a harmless fancy which many have indulged in before +Mr. Ruskin, without being charged with such unsoundness in doctrine as +denying the Personality of the Holy Ghost! By-and-by it may be found +that what men have believed in half in sport will be realized wholly in +earnest. Just outside the churchyard wall of Ecclesfield may be seen (at +least I saw it a few years ago) a little monumental stone to a favourite +dog, with the text, "Thou, Lord, preservest man and beast." And in +Kingsley's "Prose Idylls" I have just met most _apropos_ with the +following beautiful passage, which many will read with pleasure, perhaps +some with profit:-- + + "If anyone shall hint to us that we and the birds may have sprung + originally from the same type; that the difference between our + intellect and theirs is one of degree, and not of kind, we may + believe or doubt: but in either case we shall not be greatly moved. + 'So much the better for the birds,' we will say, 'and none the + worse for us. You raise the birds towards us: but you do not lower + us towards them.' What we are, we are by the grace of God. Our own + powers and the burden of them we know full well. It does not lessen + their dignity or their beauty in our eyes to hear that the birds of + the air partake, even a little, of the same gifts of God as we. Of + old said St. Guthlac in Crowland, as the swallows sat upon his + knee, 'He who leads his life according to the will of God, to him + the wild deer and the wild birds draw more near;' and this new + theory of yours may prove St. Guthlac right. St. Francis, too--he + called the birds his brothers. Whether he was correct, either + theologically or zoologically, he was plainly free from that fear + of being mistaken for an ape, which haunts so many in these modern + times. Perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he + thought it at least possible that birds might be spiritual beings + likewise, incarnate like himself in mortal flesh; and saw no + degradation to the dignity of human nature in claiming kindred + lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he + fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest, even + as angels did in heaven. In a word, the saint, though he was an + ascetic, and certainly no man of science, was yet a poet, and + somewhat of a philosopher; and would possibly--so do extremes + meet--have hailed as orthodox, while we hail as truly scientific, + Wordsworth's great saying-- + + 'Therefore am I still + A lover of the meadows and the woods + And mountains; and of all that we behold + From this green earth; of all the mighty world + Of eye and ear--both what they half create, + And what perceive; well pleased to recognize + In Nature and the language of the sense, + The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, + The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul + Of all my moral being.'" + + _Charm of Birds._ + + + + + ON LETTER VIII + + +What generous and enlightened spirit will not be stirred to its +innermost depths by these words, burning as they are with a +well-grounded indignation? + +I dare say some of the clergy will have a word to say on their claim to +the priesthood as implying a sacrificial and mediatorial character. On +this point I will say nothing at present. + +But it is an awfully solemn consideration put before us here, whether +instead of the pure blessings and the bright countenances intended to +be ours, our accursed blessings and defiled faces are not the natural +consequences of our wilful misunderstanding of what the will of the Lord +is. + +"Thy will be done" is a petition which can be offered up in two quite +distinct senses. In the one, it is an expression of resignation to the +Father's afflictive dispensations; in the other, the heartfelt desire to +work out the revealed will of God in all the many-sided aspects of life. +In the first sense, when sorrow or death has entered our door, our first +impulse, if we are Christians, is to give evidence of, and expression +to, our resignation by recognizing the _will of God_. Hence Mr. Ruskin +interposes: "Are you so sure that it _was_ the will of God that your +child should die, or that you should have got into that trouble?" I look +in my local paper in the column of deaths, and see in a neighbouring +large town how extraordinary a proportion of deaths are those of +children. I have taken occasional cemetery duty in one of the busiest +centres of industry in Yorkshire, and was shocked at the large numbers +of funerals in white. Am I to believe it was the _will of God_ that so +many young children should perish, especially as I look to my own +beautiful parish, with its sweet sea and mountain breezes mingled, where +the deaths of children are comparatively rare? and am I not forced to +believe that, even without the assistance of destitution--neglect and +overcrowding, and "quieting mixtures" and ardent spirits, and kicks and +blows have filled most of those little graves? I fear that the will of +Satan is here being accomplished vastly to his satisfaction. And seldom +does the Government do more than touch the fringe of these monstrous +evils. Of course they say "We cannot interfere," or "Legislation in +these matters is impracticable." But can we not all remember when it was +just as certain that free trade in food was impracticable? but who does +not see that it is saving us from famine this dark year 1879?--that +compulsory education was revolutionary and full of unimaginable perils +to the country, and yet who are so glad as the poor themselves, now that +it has been carried into effect? It used to be thought that if people +chose to kill themselves with unwholesome open drains before their +doors, there was no power able to prevent them. But we are wiser now. +Legislators have generally been, or chosen to appear, like cowards till +the time for action came, very late, and then they were decided enough. +Now let us hope that a way may be found to save infant life from +premature extinction by wholesale. + +Let me use this opportunity of saying that in the letters we are now +considering there is a feature which ought not to escape those who are +desirous of deriving good from them; and that is that in their very +condensed form no time is taken for explanation or expansion. Mr. Ruskin +speaks as unto wise men, and asks us to judge for ourselves what he +says. But my own experience, after frequent perusal of them, shows me +that there is a vast fund of truth in them which becomes apparent only +after patient consideration and reflection. Without desiring at all to +bestow extravagant praise on my kind friend, or any other distinguished +man, it is only fair and just to own that the truth that is in these +letters shines out more and more the more closely they are examined. It +is a gift that God has given him, which has cost him far more pain, +worry, and vexation, through all kinds of wilful and envious, as well as +innocent and unconscious misrepresentation, than ever it has gained him +of credit or renown. + +This principle leads me to view _now_ with approbation what I could not +read at first without an unpleasant feeling. The sentence: "Nearly the +whole Missionary body (with the hottest Evangelical section of the +English Church) is at this moment composed of men who think the Gospel +they are to carry to mend the world with, forsooth, is this, 'If any man +sin, he hath an Advocate with the Father.'" And when I first read it to +my reverend brethren, hard words were spoken of this passage, because in +its terseness, in its elliptic form, it easily allows itself to be +misunderstood. Yet the paragraph contains the essence of the Gospel +expressed with a faithful boldness not often met with in pulpit +addresses. + +"If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father." We have here a +solemn and momentous truth, expressed in few words, as clearly and as +briefly as any geometrical definition. But is this _all_ the Gospel? +Will this alone "mend the world, forsooth"? Now the extreme men of one +particular school in the English Church do really preach little else +beside this. When they are entreated to preach upon good works, too, and +unfold a little of their value and beauty,--if they have any at +all,--the answer is always to the effect, "Oh, of course; faith in +Christ must of necessity beget the love of good works. These are the +signs of that. Preach Christ crucified, and all the rest will be sure to +follow." And this is what is exclusively called "preaching the Gospel." +The preacher who teaches us to love our enemies, to live pure lives, to +be honourable to all men and women, to bring up our families in the +truth, is frowned upon as a "legal preacher." As a clergyman myself, I +am not afraid of saying that I look upon this so-called Gospel-preaching +as fraught with not a little of danger. God knows, wicked sinners are +found in every congregation and class of men, kneeling to pray, and +singing praises, exactly like good men. Now I can hardly conceive a +style and matter of preaching more calculated to excuse and palliate, +and almost encourage sin, than this narrow and exclusive so-called +Gospel-preaching. Neither Christ nor His apostles taught thus at all. +The whole Sermon on the Mount is moral in the highest and purest sense. +Every epistle has its moral or _legal_ side. "Woe is me if I preach not +the Gospel!" and I cannot be preaching the Gospel unless, along with the +great proclamation, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the +Father," I also do my utmost to teach "what the will of the Lord is" +concerning a pure, holy, and blameless life, full of active, good works, +done in deep humility and self-abasement; because Christ loved me and +died for me, and asks me, in love to Him, to walk in His steps. + + + + + ON LETTER IX + + +I fancy I can still hear the murmur of angry dissent pass round as I +read to my reverend brethren this indignant plea for a higher +interpretation of the petition for daily bread than that which passes +current with the unthinking, self-indulgent world. Nevertheless, this +manifestation of feeling was not general, and I thoroughly agree with +Mr. Ruskin that the world has, from the first, used this prayer +thoughtlessly and blasphemously; and probably will continue to do so to +the end, when the thoughts and imaginations of all men's hearts shall be +revealed, and no more disguises shall be possible; when the masked +hypocrite's smile shall be torn from him and reveal the covetousness +that breeds in his heart to its core; when the honourable man shall no +longer be confounded with thieves, nor the usurer and extortioner be +courted and bowed to like an honest man. + +The veil that hid the true Christ, as Mr. Ruskin has well remarked, was +removed in the breaking of bread with the disciples at Emmaus. As the +Master, so the true disciples. They too may be known both by the +spiritual breaking of the Bread of Life in the Holy Communion (though +the canting hypocrite too may be found polluting that holy rite); but +more especially in the union of the sacred ordinance with obedience to +the scarcely less sacred command of Christian love and charity to the +poor. There may be the empty profession, but there will be none of the +reality of the religion of the Gospel, unless we are partakers of the +bread broken at the Lord's Table, or unless we eat the bread earned by +the honest labour of our hands or of our brains, or share some of our +bread with those, the Lord's brethren, whom He has left for us to care +for in His name. The absence of either of these three essential +conditions just lays us open to the charge of flaunting before the world +a false and spurious Christianity. In the plain words of our friend, our +bread not being fairly got or fairly used, is stolen bread. + +But I would willingly believe that it is only by a strong figure of +speech that we clergy are here again emphatically called upon to act the +part of inquisitors by pointedly demanding of every member of our flock +a precise account of the manner in which he earns his livelihood. Still, +if the answer was not a surprised and indignant stare, I believe the +great mass of men would probably be able to give an answer which should +abundantly satisfy themselves and us, until Mr. Ruskin threw his own +light upon the answer and demonstrated that the notions of modern +civilized society are not in accordance with the highest teaching. +According to our ideas, the artisan, the tradesman, the merchant, the +members of the learned and the military and naval professions, all those +engaged in the various departments of government work, from the cabinet +minister down to the last office clerk,--all these use the labour of +body or of mind, and in return receive the necessaries or the luxuries +of life for themselves and their households. Men who are, if they +please, exempt altogether from such labour, as large landed proprietors, +are certainly under a temptation to lead a life of ease and leisure. But +it is very seldom that we are offended with the sight of a landlord so +unmindful of social duties as to take no personal active interest in the +welfare and conduct of his tenants, or forgetful of the responsibilities +to his country imposed upon him by his rank and position. + +It is to be hoped that Mr. Ruskin does not in all solemn seriousness +really expect that after a fair examination of the modes of life of all +these people, "an entirely new view of life and its sacraments will +open upon us and them." Is it indeed a fact that "the great mass of men +calling themselves Christians do actually live by robbing the poor of +their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever"? Mr. Ruskin is always +terribly in earnest in whatever he says, and we must look for an +explanation of this sentence in the very decided views he holds upon +interest of money, which he calls usury. + +Mr. Ruskin classes Usury and Interest together. Here are some of his +strong words upon this subject: "There is absolutely no debate possible +as to what usury is, any more than what adultery is. The Church has only +been polluted by indulgence in it since the 16th century. Usury is any +kind whatever of interest on loan, and it is the essential modern force +of Satan." This was written September 9th of this year. In "Fors +Clavigera," Letter lxxxii., p. 323, he challenged the Bishop of +Manchester to answer him the question, whether he considered "usury to +be a work of the Lord"?[16] In the same letter, to place his heavy +denunciation against the wickedness of usury in the best possible +company, he pleads: "Plato's scheme was impossible even in his own +day,--as Bacon's New Atlantis in _his_ day,--as Calvin's reform in _his_ +day,--as Goethe's Academe in his; but of the good there was in all these +men, the world gathered what it could find of evil." + + [16] See _Contemporary Review_, February 1880. + +Let us look a little closer into this matter. It is not because a man +with fearless frankness breasts the full torrent of popular persuasion +and universal practice that he is to be thrust aside as a fanatic, with +hard words and unfeeling sneers concerning his sanity. Here, again, I +avow my persuasion that Mr. Ruskin is, in one sense, too far in advance, +and, in another, too far in the rear of the time; and while I attempt an +explanatory justification of the modern practice, I admit that it is +only "for the hardness of our hearts" and because the golden age is +still far off. + +The Mosaic law was severe against usury and increase, forbidding it +under heavy threatenings among the faithful Israelites, but allowing it +in lending to strangers. "If thy brother be waxen poor, then thou shalt +relieve him ... take thou no usury of him, or increase" (Lev. xxv. 35, +36). "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, +usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. _Unto a +stranger_ thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt +not lend upon usury" (Deut. xxiii. 19, 20). "Lord, who shall abide in +Thy tabernacle? ... He that putteth not out his money to usury" (Psalm +xv. 1, 5. See Ezek. xviii. 7, etc.) And to come to the Christian law, we +have the mild general principle: "If ye lend to them of whom ye hope to +receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to +receive as much again.... Lend, hoping for nothing again, and your +reward shall be great" (Luke vi. 34, 35). + +So far the Law of Moses and the Gospel. + +But our Lord, in the Parable of the Talents, appears to actually +sanction the practice of loans upon interest: "Thou oughtest, therefore, +to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should +have received mine own with usury" (Matt. xxv. 27). The preceding verse, +the 26th, may well be understood to be a question--Didst thou indeed +think so? It does not even indirectly attribute hardness and oppression +to our Lord.[17] I am quite aware that it may be replied that this is an +instance of those strong audacious metaphors, where the fact used by way +of illustration is instinctively overleaped by the mind of the hearer to +arrive at the lesson which it marks and emphasizes; as when the Lord is +represented as an unjust judge, or Paul speaks of grafting the wild +olive branch upon the good, or James refers to the rust and canker upon +gold and silver, or Milton speaks of certain bishops as "blind +mouths."[18] But in all these cases, the hyperbole is manifest; it is an +untruth or a disguise, which not only does not deceive, but teaches a +great truth. Our Lord's reference to money-lenders or exchangers appears +to lend an indirect sanction to a familiar practice. + + [17] The owners of five talents and of two talents are commended + for making cent. per cent. of their money; but the man who hid away + his one talent, as French peasants do, and brought it to his Lord + untouched and undiminished, received a severe rebuke. + + [18] Lycidas. See "Sesame and Lilies," p. 27. + +The Law of Moses, therefore, rebuking the practice of lending for +increase among brethren and encouraging it in dealing with strangers, +combined with the well-known avarice of the Jews to make them +money-lenders on a large scale, and at high rates of interest, to the +prodigals and spendthrifts, the bankrupt barons and needy sovereigns of +the middle ages. Money was rarely lent for commercial purposes, and to +advance the real prosperity of the borrower. It was generally to stave +off want for the time; and principal and interest, when pay-day came, +had generally to be found in the pastures or strongholds of the enemy. +High interest was charged, on account of the extraordinary +precariousness of what was called the security. Grinding and grasping +undoubtedly the money-lenders would be, from the hardship of their case. +Reckless extravagance and lavish profusion were, in those non-commercial +ages, highly applauded. The spendthrift and the prodigal was the +favourite of the multitude; the rich money-lender was hated and abused, +while his money-bags were sought after with all the eagerness of +hard-driving poverty. They reviled the careful and economical Israelite; +they looked with horror upon his vast accumulations of capital, and +never remembered to thank him for the safety they owed to him from the +violent hands of their own soldiers and retainers. + +All this went on until the sixteenth or seventeenth century. I have +before me a very curious old book, lent to me by Mr. Ruskin, entitled, +"The English Usurer: or, Usury Condemned by the most learned and famous +Divines of the Church of England. Collected by John Blaxton, Preacher of +God's Word at Osmington, in Dorsetshire, 1634." + +The language throughout the book is of extreme violence against all +manner of usury. The compiler gives a collection of the most emphatic +testimonies of the greatest preachers of the day against this +"detestable vice." Bishop Jewell calls it "a most filthy trade, a trade +which God detesteth, a trade which is the very overthrow of all +Christian love." There is, it must be admitted, no sort of argument +attempted in the long extract from Bishop Jewell's sermon to demonstrate +the wickedness of the practice against which he launches his fierce +invectives, but he certainly brings his sermon to a conclusion with a +threat of extreme measures "if they continue therein. I will open their +shame and denounce excommunication against them, and publish their names +in this place before you all, that you may know them, and abhor them as +the plagues and monsters of this world; that if they be past all fear of +God, they may yet repent and amend for worldly shame." + +This was Bishop Jewell preaching in the middle of the 16th century; and +such were the strong terms very generally employed by good and +thoughtful men at that day. Bacon (Essay 41) says that one of the +objections against usury is that "it is against nature for money to +beget money!" Antonio, in "The Merchant of Venice," asks: + + "When did friendship take + A _breed_ of barren metal of his friend?" + +And his practice was "neither to lend nor borrow by taking nor giving of +excess," which brought upon him the malice and vindictiveness of the +Jew-- + + "that in low simplicity + He lends out money gratis, and brings down + The rate of usance here with us in Venice." + +Philip, in Tennyson's "Brook "--a simple man in later times-- + + "Could not understand how money breeds, + Thought it a dead thing." + +But there were men, too, who saw that the taking of moderate interest +was a blameless act. Calvin was a contemporary of Bishop Jewell, and his +mind exhibits a curious mixture of feelings upon the subject. Blaxton +triumphantly places a sentence from Calvin's "Epistola de Usura" as a +battle-flag in his title-page:-- + +"In republica bene constituta nemo faenerator tolerabilis est; sed omnino +debet e consortio hominum rejici." "An usurer is not tolerable in a +well-established Commonwealth, but utterly to be rejected out of the +company of men." So again, in his Commentary on Deuteronomy. But again, +in a passage quoted from the same author, without reference, in Dugald +Stewart's Preliminary Dissertation (Encyd. Brit.) we come across a +different view. + +"'Money begets not money!'--What does the sea beget? What the house for +which I receive rent? Is silver brought forth from the walls and the +roof? But that is produced from land, and that is drawn forth from the +sea, which shall produce money; and the convenience of a house is paid +for with a stipulated sum. Now if better profit can be derived from the +letting out of money than by the letting of an estate, shall a profit be +made by letting perhaps some barren land to a farmer, and shall it not +be allowed to him who lends a sum of money? He who gets an estate by +purchase, shall he not from that money derive an annual profit? Whence +then is the merchant's profit? You will say, from his diligence and +industry. Does anyone suppose that money ought to lie idle and +unprofitable? He who borrows of me is not going to let the loan lie +idle. He is not going to draw profit from the money itself, but from the +goods bought with it. Those reasonings, therefore, against usury are +subtle, and have a certain plausibility; but they fall as soon as they +are examined more narrowly. I therefore conclude that we are to judge of +usury, not from any particular passage of Scripture, but by the ordinary +rules of justice and equity." + +To come at once to modern days and practical views. Let us suppose +lending on interest forbidden by the Church and the law. Then sums of +money required for good and legitimate business purposes must be begged +as a great favour. No honourable man would do this. The instinctive +repugnance felt by an independent man to place himself under pecuniary +obligations which he could not reciprocate would stop many a promising +young man of slender means from going to college, many a good man of +business from using the most favourable opportunities. I am not speaking +of borrowing money to gain temporary relief from pecuniary +embarrassment, but of money honourably desired to realize advantages of +apparent life-value. So the necessitous would be doomed to remain in +hopeless necessity until some benevolently-minded person with a mass of +loose unemployed capital came to his rescue, and such men are not to be +met with every day. + +So far for the man who would like to borrow, but that the law will not +allow it except as a free loan or gift. Then for the willing lender, if +he dared. He has, say, a few thousands in hand, which he does not wish +to spend. He looks round, if he is anxious to use it for good, for an +object of his charity who seems least likely to disappoint him. Does our +experience of human nature teach that a sense of gratitude for benefits +received is a good security for honourable conduct? Alas! in a multitude +of cases--I fear the majority--the lender would only be met with cold +and alienated looks when he expected to receive his own again, if indeed +he found anywhere at all the object of his kindness. The memory of past +ingratitude, the fear of worse to come, would dry the sources of +benevolence, and make the upright and honest to suffer equally with the +swindler and the hypocrite. + +But there is no such fear now. The recognized system of lending upon +approved security for a fair and moderate rate of interest removes the +irksome, galling sense of obligation, and enables any man to borrow with +a feeling that if he receives an obligation he is also conferring one; +that if he makes ten per cent. by trading, or a good stipend by his +degree, he will divide his profits fairly with the man who served him, +and that he is helping him in his turn to keep his money together for +the sake of his children after him. Take away these benefits, and what +good is done by free lending? Not any that we can see with ordinary +eyes, but a good deal of suspicion, disappointment, ingratitude, and +loss. + +An honourable man would a hundred times rather accept a loan as a matter +of profit to the lender than as a charity to himself. The right result +of an honourable system of borrowing and lending with equal advantage to +both, _is_ the will of God, and not contrary to sanctification. The +result of a compulsory system of charitable loans would lead only to the +destruction of credit and mutual confidence, and the sacrifice of a +multitude of Christian graces and virtues. + +We cannot help observing with what vehemence Mr. Ruskin constantly +thrusts the thief, the adulterer, and the usurer all into the same boat +to be tossed against the breakers of his wrath. Now I would ask some one +of those numerous disciples of his, whose affection almost prompts them +to say to him, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," "Pray, my +good friend, what is your own practice? Providence has blessed you with +ease and affluence far more than you need for daily bread. What do you +do with your money? Of course you would never think of investing in +consols, in railway shares, or dock-bonds, would you? you would not lend +money upon mortgage, or exact rent for your household and landed +property? I see that you hesitate a little; you have something to +confess. Come! what is it?" And my amiable friend replies, "Oh, but you +see all the world is gone after interest of money; all our mutual +relations are so intimately bound up with that accursed, abominable +practice, that I have no alternative. _I have_ large sums lodged in +various safe investments, and employ an agent to collect my rents and +settle with my tenants." And so I am forced to exclaim, "What! you who +are persuaded that usury, and theft, and adultery, are all of equal +blackness, if you find that one sin is unavoidable, what about the other +two? Would you then invite the robber and the licentious to sin with +impunity, as you practise your own convenient iniquity, with the +applause of the world and your own acquiescence?" + +Positively I see no escape from this argument. It is the _argumentum ad +hominem_,--generally an uncivil mode of address; but here, at any rate, +it is impersonally used. + +These are my views frankly stated. If I am wrong, even by the highest +standard of Christian ethics, I shall be thankful for Mr. Ruskin's +corrections. + + + + + ON LETTER X + + +The letters which I have received up to the present time (October 31st) +in reply to Mr. Ruskin's have not failed to bring me not a little of +disappointment. On the one hand, I see a man noble and elevated in his +aims, and with highest aspirations, desiring nothing so fervently as to +see the world and its pastors and teachers rising to the highest +attainable level of religious and moral excellence; fearlessly rebuking +the evils he sees so clearly; clothing thoughts that consume him in +words that stir our inmost hearts; and yet I see him unavoidably missing +his aim as all men are liable to do, through the defect of possessing +human language alone as the channel to convey divine meanings; and, +moreover, who cannot at every turn stay the course of their reasoning to +explain that that which they speak apparently, and from the necessities +of language, to _all_, is, as the most ordinary apprehension would +perceive, really addressed to _some_. + +On the other side, while I hear many expressing their thankfulness that +things are now being said that "wanted saying," and are being spoken out +with uncompromising boldness, others receive them with impatience, with +irritation, with exasperation. I have been gravely advised to recommend +Mr. Ruskin to withdraw these letters, to wash my hands of them, etc. +Sometimes this arises from unfamiliarity with Mr. Ruskin's most famous +works; sometimes from entire unacquaintance with their number and their +nature; as when a friend wrote to me before he saw or heard a word of +the letters:-- + +"If Mr. Ruskin thinks we have generally read his _publication_ (_sic_) +I think he is mistaken; all I know of _it_ is that I have occasionally +seen _it_ quoted in newspapers, from which I gather that he holds +peculiar opinions." + +A lady, who looked well to the ways of her household, but knew very +little of books, once asked me if Mr. Ruskin had not written a book +called the "Old Red Sandstone." I hinted that probably she meant the +"Stones of Venice," which was indeed the case. She knew it was something +about stones! But she was an excellent creature nevertheless! + +These two traits may fairly be paired together. + +It should be observed, by clergymen especially who read these letters +attentively, that they contain just what we clergy ought to be told +sometimes by laymen, to whom we preach with perfect impunity, but who as +a rule rarely make reply. I have just read Lord Carnarvon's excellent +address on Preaching, delivered at the Winchester Diocesan Conference, +and thank him as I thank, and for the same reason that I thank, Mr. +Ruskin. We need to be told wholesome though unpalatable truths +sometimes, when we have descended from our castle-pulpits to meet, it +may be, the eyes, and hear the voices, of impatient, irritated, and +prejudiced critics. + +I do not remember that so bold an attack, and yet so friendly, has ever +before been made upon our weak points in modern times; and I may justly +claim for Mr. Ruskin's letters a calm, self-searching, and, if need be, +a self-condemning and self-sacrificing, examination. We are all too apt +to cry "Peace, peace, where there is no peace." Why should the shepherds +of Britain claim for themselves a more indulgent regard than the +shepherds of Israel, whom Ezekiel, by the word of the Lord, addressed in +the 33rd and 34th chapters of his prophecy? + +Concerning the letter before us on the forgiveness of sins--each other's +sins or debts, and our sins before God--it is not a question of +theology, but of simple moral right and wrong; and I defy Mr. Ruskin's +bitterest censors to deny, that, in this wicked world, men are more in +earnest in deceiving, injuring, and swindling their friends than they +are in seeking the love of their enemies. Has not our Lord told us long +ago that "the children of this world are wiser" (that is, more earnest, +consistent, and thorough-going) "in their generation than the children +of light"? + +It is of extreme difficulty to _understand_ the clause, says Mr. Ruskin. +Replies some slow-witted preacher: "Where is the difficulty? I both +understand it and explain it with perfect ease!" What! understand the +precious conditions on which forgiveness will be extended to us! The +question of God's forgiveness is not a _simple_ question. It is +complicated by its relation to men's mutual forgiveness of each other, +and that again by the practical difficulty of knowing when we can, and +when, from the very nature of the case, we cannot, forgive. Here are +surely elements of difficulty quite sufficient to justify the remark +that "the clause is one of such difficulty that, to understand it, means +almost to know the love of God which passeth knowledge." + +But we may, at any rate, guard our people against _misunderstanding_ it; +and they are guilty, and full of guilt, who live in sin,--sins of +avarice, of ill temper, of calumny, of hatred, of sensuality, and of +unforgivingness, and yet daily ask to be forgiven, because, forsooth, +they are innocent of any bad intention! + +No man or woman who sins with the knowledge that it _is_ sin can have +God's forgiveness. It is no use to plead the frailty of the flesh. It is +wilful, knowing, deliberate sin; and it will not be forgiven without a +very living, earnest, and working faith indeed. + +I question much whether we preachers of the Gospel say enough upon this +point,--not at all that we underrate its importance, nor that we +overrate the importance of that which we are apt to call Gospel +preaching [Greek: kat' exochen], namely, the doctrine of the atonement +by the Blood of Christ, which is the brightness and glory of the Gospel +message, but is no more all of it than that the sum of the Lord's Prayer +is contained in one of its clauses. + +"As we forgive them that trespass against us." Shall I be pardoned for +venturing here upon a remark which seems needful to make in the presence +of so much that appears to be erroneous on the subject of human +forgiveness? And it is more especially necessary to be understood in +the case of the clergy, because such large demands are made upon their +forgiveness as it is impossible to satisfy. I do not at all say that +there are trespasses which men cannot forgive,--sins, I mean, of the +ordinary type, and not crimes. But I do say that there are times and +circumstances under which forgiveness is a moral impossibility. And yet +the world expects a clergyman to be ever walking up and down in society +with forgiveness on his lips and forgiveness in both his hands. Our Lord +said, "If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and _if he +repent_, forgive him" (Luke xvii. 3); and forgiveness is to follow each +successive profession of repentance. And in Matt. xviii. 22, though +repentance is not named, it is manifestly implied. In 2 Cor. ii. 7, +again, sorrow for the sin is a condition of forgiveness. This, then, is +the rule and condition of forgiveness, that our brother _repent_; and +manifestly it must be so; for the act of forgiveness requires a +correlative disposition to seek and receive forgiveness, just as a gift +implies not only a giver but a receiver, or it cannot be a gift, do what +we will. I think this is extremely apt to be overlooked even by the +larger, that is, the more emotional and impulsive part of the world, +though not, of course, by the more thoughtful; and clergymen especially +are asked to speak fair, and sue for peace, and all but ask for +forgiveness of those who are habitually and obstinately bent upon doing +them all the wrong and injury in their power, and using them with the +most intolerable harshness. + +What, then, does true religion require of us if such circumstances make +forgiveness impossible? To be ever ready, ever prepared to forgive; to +seek every opening, every avenue to peace without sacrifice of +self-respect and manly independence; to watch for opportunities to do +kindnesses to the most inveterate enemy,--even where a change of heart +appears hopeless. This is possible to a Christian, and this is what +Christ demands. But He does not demand impossibilities. He does not ask +us to do more than our Heavenly Father Himself, who forgives the +returning sinner even "a great way off," if his face be but homeward; +but says nothing of forgiveness to him whose back is towards his home, +and whose heart dwells far away. + +I am sure Mr. Ruskin does not mean that no clergyman is sensible of the +guilt of sins of omission. But he is speaking as a layman, who has heard +in his time a great many preachers, and it is very probable indeed that +he has not heard many dwell long and forcibly on the fact, which is +indeed a fact, that the guilt of sins of omission is the burden of +Christ's teaching, and that more parables and more preaching are +directed against the sin of doing nothing at all than against the +positive and active wickedness of bad men. If we will be candid, we must +agree with him that in our general teaching we do lay much less emphasis +on such sins than our Lord does in _His_ teaching. + +But in the paragraph which follows, I confess that, following up a +charge which is sadly too true, that there is a grotesque inconsistency +"in the willingness of human nature to be taxed with any quantity of +sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation of having +committed the smallest parcel of them in detail," there comes a +sentence in which the Christian philosopher loses himself in the caustic +satirist, and that this vein continues to the end of the letter. In +satire, such is its very essence, truth is ever travestied. It is truth +still, but the truth in unfamiliar, and, for the most part, unacceptable +guise. There is just an undercurrent of truth, and no more, in the +statement, not very seriously made, one would suppose, that the English +Liturgy was "drawn up with the amiable intention of making religion as +pleasant as possible, to a people desirous of saving their souls with no +great degree of personal inconvenience." + +If the whole naked truth were spoken with the deepest gravity that the +awful pressure of our sins demands, the English Liturgy would be a +continuous wail of grief and repentance. For if anything is great, and +loud, and urgent, it is the cry of our sins. But co-extensive with our +sins is the love of our Father; and, therefore, our mourning is changed +into rejoicing and thankfulness, and this picture of the sinner +"dexterously concealing the manner of his sin from man, and +triumphantly confessing the quantity of it to God," is merely a satire. + +The next paragraph is more bitter still; but happily for the cause of +sober truth, it is satire again; and nothing can be more obvious than +the fact that prayer, to be Common Prayer, cannot at the same time suit +every condition of mind, the calm and the agitated, the strained and the +relaxed, the rejoicing and the sorrowful. But we are not dependent upon +public worship for the satisfaction of our spiritual wants, as long as +we can resort to private prayer and family prayer. And, indeed, it +requires no wonderful stretch of our powers of adaptation to use the +most strenuous private prayer in the midst of the congregation; and the +"remorseful publican" and the "timid sinner" are not bound to the words +before them, or if they do follow these words, I am sure there is enough +depth in them to satisfy the views of the most conscience-stricken. +Common Prayer is calm to the calm, and passionate to the passionate. It +is all things to all men, just according to their frame of mind at the +time. + +But alas for my good kind friend! as we get nearer to the end of the +letter, the satire waxes fiercer, and the adherence to the truth of +nature grows fainter. Does Mr. Ruskin seriously, or only sarcastically, +tell us that the assaults upon the divine power of prayer gain any force +from the circumstance that we are constrained to pray daily for +forgiveness, never getting so far as to need it no longer? From the +first day that we lisped at our mother's knee, "Forgive us our +trespasses," until, bowed with age, we _still_ say, "Forgive us our +trespasses," we have never stood, and never will stand, one day less in +need of forgiveness than another day--or our Lord would have provided a +thanksgiving and a prayer for the perfected. + +I believe everywhere else I recognize, even in the most startling +passages, an element of truth. But in the latter half of this letter, +not even the large amount of acrimony and severity allowed to the mode +of address called satire can quite reconcile us to its marvellous +asperity. + + + + + ON LETTER XI + + +I cannot but feel astonished and grieved at the perversity of those +who[19] persist in looking upon Mr. Ruskin as altogether a noxious kind +of a scribbler, and likely to do much injury by the unflagging constancy +with which he perseveres in pointing his finger at all our weak and sore +places. And yet it cannot be said that even if he does "lade men with +burdens grievous to be borne," he himself "touches not the burdens with +one of his fingers." + + [19] It was but yesterday that a voice reached me from one of the + remotest of our Ultima Thules amongst these mountains, affirming, + with something like self-gratulation, that he "cared less than + nothing for anything Mr. Ruskin might write outside the subject of + Art!" Yet one of the best of our Bishops--and we have many good + ones--wrote by the same post: "Mr. Ruskin's letters are full of + suggestive thoughts, and must do anyone good, if only in getting + one out of the ruts." But, alas! against this I must needs set the + dictum of another dignitary of the Church, an intensely practical + man: "I have a great reverence for Mr. Ruskin's genius, and for + what he has written in time past, and on this account I would + rather not say a single word in comment upon these letters;" and + again--"I really could not discuss them seriously." + +But let us consider this last letter. Is not every word of it +true--severely and austerely true,--but still true? But yet here still +the fault remains (though I say it with the utmost deference, +remembering that, after all, I have infinitely more to learn than I have +to teach), the fault remains that the truth is put too keenly, too +incisively, to be classed with practical truths. + +Yes, the petitions of the Lord's Prayer are for a perfect state in this +life. We do pray for a Paradise upon earth, where either temptation +shall no longer exist, or where sin shall have lost its power to injure +by losing its power to allure. But will the most incessant prayer, +individual, combined, or congregational, ever bring us to perfection? +Alas! my friend, you would gladly persuade us so; you would lead the way +yourself, but that the first half-dozen steps you take would have, or +have long ago, proved to you that sin is ever present, even in the best +and purest of men. + +I trust they are very few indeed who are so easily persuaded by the +conceited self-sufficiency of the "scientific people" to cease from +prayer under the belief that all things move on under the control of +inflexible laws, which neither prayer nor the will of God, if God has a +will, can change or modify. Magee[20] has a valuable note on the subject +of the "Consistency of Prayer with the Divine Immutability," in which he +puts this truth in a mathematical form. He says, "The relation of God to +man + prayer is different from the relation of God to man - prayer. Yet +God remains constant. It is man who is the better or the worse for +prayer or no prayer." + + [20] On the Atonement. + +It is pleasant to reflect that with the simple-minded Christian the +belief in Christ, because he knows that Christ loved him and died for +him, is exceedingly little moved by these so-called scientific doubts. +The propounders of these entangling questions move in a region where he +would feel cold and his life would be crushed out of him, and he +declines to follow science at so great a cost, believing besides that +science might often be better termed nescience, for he has no faith in +such science. Instead of being presented with clear deductions, drawn +from observation and experience, he sees but too plainly that, as each +philosopher frames his own belief out of his inner consciousness, there +cannot fail to come out a very large variety of beliefs, and that, if +the religion of the Bible were exploded and became an obsolete thing, +its place would be usurped by a motley crowd of infinitely varied creeds +of every shape and hue, each claiming for itself, with more or less +modesty and reserve, but with just equal rights, the supremacy over +men's consciences. And in the meanwhile, women and children and the +poor, and in fact all who are not altogether highly, transcendentally +intellectual, must, for want of the requisite faculties and +opportunities, do without any religion at all. I suppose most people can +see this, and therefore will pay a very limited attention to the claims +and pretensions of science-worship. + +I come to a sentence where once more the proclivity for satire breaks +out for a minute: "But in modern days the first aim of all Christians is +to place their children in circumstances where the temptations (which +they are apt to call opportunities) may be as great and as many as +possible; where the sight and promise of 'all these things' in Satan's +gift may be brilliantly near." I was reading this from the MS. to a +mother, accomplished and amiable, who of course thought in a moment of +her own little flock of sons and daughters, all the objects of the +tenderest care and solicitude; and she felt that she at least had not +deserved this stroke. But the truth is that we must read this sentence +as we read our Lord's, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: +I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. x. 34). The sword was not +the object of our Lord's coming, but the unhappy result through sin. He +came to bring peace on earth, yet was He "set for the fall of many in +Israel." The wisest and best of parents place their sons in the +profession or position in life where temptations abound, not because +they desire to see them bow before Satan, and become the possessors of +"all these things" which he promises "I will give thee," but because +there is no position in the active life of the world that is free from +temptations; and those temptations are the strongest and most numerous +often just where the real and undoubted advantages are the greatest and +most numerous. Mr. Ruskin, with a strong and legitimate figure of +speech, is simply putting an inevitable result as the work of apparent +design. + +If the distinction between the glory and the power of the kingdom of God +and the false lustre of earthly power and worldly allurements is not +sufficiently dwelt upon in our pulpits, none will regret it more than +the earnest preachers in whom the modern Church of England abounds. If +it be granted, as I think it must be granted, that the highest wisdom is +not always exercised in the choice and preparation of our subjects of +preaching, every true-hearted and loyal Churchman must be grateful for +the fearless candour of the writer of the letters we have been +considering, in pointing out to us our prevailing deficiencies, even if +he does not, which is not his province, point out how to attain +perfection. + + F. A. MALLESON. + + + + + LETTERS FROM CLERGY AND LAITY + + (FROM THE FIRST EDITION) + + +The following letters have been entrusted to me for publication in this +work. The writers of twenty-two of them are clergymen, of whom sixteen +are members of three Clerical Societies, all of whom have read their +letters before the Societies to which they belong, except in the case of +one Society, where it was impracticable. The remaining six have been +kind enough to write in acceptance of the invitation in the +_Contemporary Review_ for December, 1879. The remaining letters are from +members of the laity, attracted by the same proposal. Many others have +been received; but it would not have been possible to include them all +in a volume of moderate size, some of them besides being of great +length; and I was therefore, with regret, obliged to decline them. + +It was not originally intended that the invitation to discuss these +questions should be extended to laymen. But several so understood it +from the preface in the _Contemporary_, and when I came to examine the +letters sent on this understanding, I felt a conviction that a true and +safe light would be thrown upon the subject by their assistance; and, +using the discretionary power allowed me by Mr. Ruskin, I thought it, on +the whole, best to give admission to a certain number of communications +from laymen. + +Besides, as they themselves are, in great measure, the subjects of the +discussion, and, therefore, must feel a lively interest in it, it seems +but fair that they too should have a voice in the matter. Another reason +yet had considerable weight with me, that their letters evince a larger +and more liberal sympathy with Mr. Ruskin himself than those of some of +my clerical brethren, in whose letters there is but too perceptible a +degree of irascibility, not unnatural to us, perhaps, in finding +ourselves rather sharply lectured by a layman--the shepherds by the +sheep. And I hoped that a more fraternal spirit would be promoted by my +free acceptance of their ready offer. + +The same consenting spirit is all but universal in the notices of the +press upon Mr. Ruskin's letters. But I do not wish to anticipate the +judgment of "the Church and the world" upon the whole series of letters +here presented. Notwithstanding the peculiar and sometimes rather +bewildering effect of a variety of "cross lights," they appear to myself +to be invested with singular interest as a faithful reflection of the +opinions of the clergy and the laity upon some of the most stirring +religious questions of the day. + +Moreover, it will, I am sure, please readers who have endeavoured in +vain to extract some meaning out of many of the sometimes tedious and +unintelligible essayists of the day, to observe that the discussion in +this volume at least is carried on in language perfectly clear and +within the reach of ordinary understandings. At any rate, I hope it will +not be said of any of the writers who have together made up this little +volume: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without +knowledge?" + +Before the sheets are sent to press they will be perused by Mr. Ruskin, +who will then use his privilege of replying, thus bringing the volume to +a conclusion. + +I could not undertake to classify these letters; and have, therefore, as +the simplest mode, arranged them in the alphabetical order of the +writers' names. + + F. A. MALLESON. + + + + + _From the Rev._ CHARLES BIGG, D.D., _Rector of Fenny Compton_. + + +Mr. Ruskin compares the clergyman with an Alpine guide, whose business +it is simply to carry the traveller in safety over rocks and glaciers to +the mountain top. He is not to trouble himself or his charge with +needless refinements of doctrine. He is not to exaggerate the dignity of +his office, or to give himself out as anything but a guide. In +particular, he is not to assume anything of a mediatorial character. He +is to preach the Gospel--not of Luther nor of Augustine, but of Christ; +in plain words and short terms. He is to proclaim aloud, boldly and +constantly, "This is the will of the Lord,"--to apply, that is, the +morality of the Gospel, stringently and authoritatively, to the lives of +his people. To effect this application with more power, he is to +exercise a rigid discipline, and exclude from his congregation all who +are not acting up to what he conceives to be the Gospel ideal. He is not +to hamper himself with any set and formal Liturgy, which can never be +copious or flexible enough to meet the varied needs of a number of men +differing widely in knowledge and attainment. + +Every one will feel what a crowd of perplexities start up here at every +sentence. In what sense is a clergyman like a Chamouni guide? There is a +resemblance, no doubt, but not of a kind on which it would be possible +to build any argument. It is not the business of the Alpine guide to +exercise any supervision over the morals of his employers, or to ask how +they earned the money with which he is paid. Again, what is meant by +the Gospel of Christ not according to anybody? It is easy to reject the +authority of St. Paul or St. John, or of Luther or Augustine, but there +is one commentator whose influence cannot be shaken off, and that is +ourselves. And our experience of those who have professed to preach the +Gospel pure and simple is not reassuring. Does Mr. Ruskin mean that we +are to burn all our theology,--even apparently the Epistles of St. +Paul,--and to forget all Church history since the day of the +Crucifixion? Does he mean that we are each to set up a theology--a +Church of his own? It would be but a poor gain to most of us to exchange +the great lamps of famous doctors for the uncertain rushlights of our +own imaginations. + +Then again, what is this new and more than Genevan discipline that the +clergyman is to enforce? He is to take more pains to get wicked rich men +to stay out of the church than to persuade wicked poor ones to enter it. +After putting his own interpretation upon the Gospel, he is to lay under +an interdict all whom his own fire-new formula--for a formula he must +still have--excludes. He is to force, by the method of Procrustes, the +visible Church into co-extension with the invisible. No community of +Christians has ever attempted such a task. Any zealous (surely +over-zealous) parish priest who should so narrow the limits of his fold, +who should exclude the "usurer" from the ordinary means of grace, for +fear lest he should take God's name in vain by joining in the public +prayers, would expose himself, may we not think? to the reproach of +being less merciful than He who sends rain on the just and the unjust. +Nor, as he looked round upon his carefully-selected congregation, could +he easily flatter himself that he was preaching the Gospel "to every +creature." + +Again, what is the will of the Lord, and what does Mr. Ruskin mean by +proclaiming it? That He loves righteousness and hates iniquity we know. +The difficulty is in applying this general rule in detail. What is its +bearing upon the policy of the Government, upon any particular trade +strike, upon the tangled web of good and evil motives which makes up the +moral consciousness of an average shopkeeper? I conceive Mr. Ruskin to +be thinking of preachers like Bernard, Savonarola, or Latimer, of +denunciations like those of Isaiah, or of our Lord. He seems to mean +that the clergyman should stand on a clear mountain summit, looking down +over the whole field of life, discerning with the eye of a prophet every +movement of evil on a small scale or on a large. There have been such +teachers in whose hands science, economy, politics, seemed all to become +branches of theology, members of one great body of Divine truth. But not +every man's lips are thus touched with the coal from the altar. Many an +excellent and most useful preacher would make but wild work if he took +to denouncing social movements or the spirit of the age. A singular +illustration of the danger that besets these sweeping moral judgments is +to be found in Mr. Ruskin's own denunciation of usury, that is, of +taking interest for money. Few people will agree either with the +particular opinion that every old lady who lives harmlessly on her +railway dividends ought to be excommunicated, or with the general +principle implied in this opinion, that every prohibition in the Old +Testament is still as valid as ever under social circumstances +altogether different. + +People who need denouncing do not, as a rule, come to church to be +denounced. And it would be a great error to conclude, from our Lord's +language to the Pharisees and Sadducees, that the tone in which He +addressed the individual sinner was harsh or scathing. The preacher must +remember that he is a physician of souls, and the physician's touch is +gentle. Think for a moment what worldliness is--how easy it is to say +bitter things about it!--and then picture to yourselves a little +tradesman with a wife and seven or eight children to keep on his scanty +profits. What wonder if he sets too high a value on money? How difficult +for him to understand the words which bid him take no thought for the +morrow! + +There is a time, no doubt, for fierce language, but it does not often +come. The preacher is no more exempt than other people from the golden +rule to put himself in his neighbour's place, and try to see things with +his neighbour's eyes. + +Another difficulty arises out of the manner in which Mr. Ruskin speaks +of the relation of his Chamouni guides to dogmatic teaching. They ought +not, he says, to be compelled to hold opinions on the subject, say, of +the height of the Celestial Mountains, the crevasses which go down +quickest to the pit, and other cognate points of science, differing +from, or even contrary to, the tenets of the guides of the Church of +France. + +It is difficult in the extreme to know exactly what is here meant. No +doubt it is needless for a guide to drop a plumb-line down every +crevasse that he has to cross. It would be great waste of time to +lecture his travellers on the laws that regulate the motion of glaciers +or the dip of the mountain strata. But what are the doctrines that stand +in this relation, or this no-relation, to the spiritual life? Is it +meant that all theology should be swept away like a dusty old cobweb? + +I would go myself as far as this, that the fewer and simpler the +doctrines that a clergyman preaches, the better; that all doctrines +should be required to pass the test of reason and conscience, which are +also in their degrees Divine revelations, so far, at least, as this, +that no doctrine can be admitted which is demonstrably repugnant to +either one or the other. And in the third place, the greatest care +should be taken to discriminate matters of faith, real axioms of +religion, from pious opinions or venerable practices which have no vital +connection with the Christian faith; which, to use Burke's phrase, all +understandings do not ratify, and all hearts do not approve. A grave +responsibility rests upon those who neglect this discrimination. It is +also a point of the highest importance that when most doctrinal a +clergyman should be least dogmatic; that he should remember that all +doctrine, by the necessity of the case, is cast into an antithetical, +more or less paradoxical shape; that he should never lose sight of the +harmony and balance between intersecting truths, or of that unfortunate +tendency of the human mind to seize upon and appropriate points of +difference in their crudest and most antagonistic form, to the exclusion +of points of agreement; that he should always do his best to show the +reasonableness of the Christian teaching, its analogy and harmony with +all the works of God; that where his knowledge fails, he should frankly +confess that it does fail, and not try to eke it out by guesses, or to +disguise its insufficiency by rhetoric. + +But after all these allowances it remains a fact that the clergyman is +not a guide only, but a teacher, an ambassador. He is to teach his +people all that he knows about God and His relation to the soul of man. +He is to study and meditate himself, and to set forth the conclusion he +has reached fully and fearlessly. And if he discharges this duty +reasonably and zealously, he need not be afraid of finding that there is +a gulf fixed between doctrine and practice. These two must go together. +There can be no conduct deserving the name without a philosophy of +conduct, and that philosophy is a sound divinity. Even the loftiest and +most abstruse doctrines must have an influence upon life. It is a common +remark that scientific truth should be pursued for its own sake, and +that the most valuable practical results have often followed from +investigations carried out with a single eye to the truth. It is an +equally common remark that those teach the simplest things best whose +range of knowledge and belief is widest. We might point to Mr. Ruskin +himself as a striking illustration of this. What is simpler than beauty? +what more universally apprehended? what at first sight more incapable of +analysis? Yet as we listen to the great critic, what wonderful laws does +he point out--what a wealth of knowledge does he bring to bear--how +clear he makes it to us that the power of feeling (still more the power +of creating) beauty is the hard-won fruit of labour, study, and +devotion. So it is with life: those who would create a beautiful life +must know the laws of spiritual beauty,--and those laws are theology. + +But criticism is a thankless task. It is a more gracious and, towards a +great man, a more respectful office to note those points on which our +debt to Mr. Ruskin is acknowledged, and our sympathy with him unalloyed. +These letters are, in spirit at any rate, not unworthy of the man who +has exercised a deeper and wider influence upon the morality of our time +than any other, except perhaps Thomas Carlyle. And the great lesson of +each of these eloquent teachers is the duty of Reality. There are many +points in which we do not agree with them: let us be all the readier to +acknowledge the debt that we owe. Both laymen,--like Amos, neither +prophets nor sons of prophets,--they have done a work which, perhaps, +under the altered circumstances of society, no professional preacher +could have achieved. Any one who considers the earnestness and reverence +of modern intellectual literature; the anxious desire even of the +Agnostic to lay the foundations of his moral life as deep as possible; +the manifold efforts, while denying all religion, yet to maintain the +union of imagination and reason, without which there can be no loftiness +of character, no nobility of aspiration, yet which nothing but religion +can consecrate and fructify,--and compares all this with the sneering, +self-satisfied flippancy of Gibbon and Voltaire, will feel how vast is +the change for the better; and these two writers have been the chief +instruments in bringing that change about. + +Let me notice briefly two points on which Mr. Ruskin insists in these +letters with great force and beauty. The first is the love of the +Father. No text is more familiar than that which tells us that "God is +love." It is not indeed inconsistent with that other text which tells +us that He is "a consuming fire." But if its meaning is fully imbibed +and allowed to bear its natural fruit, it must result in the abandonment +of those forensic views of our blessed Lord's atonement, which all the +subtlety of Canon Mozley cannot bring into harmony with the dictates of +our consciences. If the Father is love, there can be no division, no +antithesis between the Father and the Son. If He is love, then the idea +of sacrifice, which is of the essence of love, must enter into our +conception of the Father also. I say no more about this, because any one +who chooses to do so may find the Fatherhood of God, and all that it +implies, treated of with great fulness and a marvellous depth of +spiritual insight in the letters of Erskine of Linlathen. + +It can hardly be doubted that the kind of language which Protestants of +a certain class have been, and still are, in the habit of using, about +the "Scheme of Redemption," constitutes a most serious stumbling-block +in the way of many an earnest spirit. There are few preachers probably, +and few congregations now,--in the Establishment at any rate,--who +would not revolt against the hideous calmness with which Jonathan +Edwards contemplates the "little spiders" dropping off into the flames. +But a great deal of mischief remains to be undone. Those who are +acquainted with the biographies of Shelley, of James and of John Stuart +Mill, know well what effect the fierce doctrines of Calvinism have +produced upon minds which for the issues of morality and, surely, even +of religion, were "finely touched." And who can tell what horror and +indignation have been wrought in some minds, what agonies of despair in +others, who, when at last the blessed work of repentance began to stir +within them, and they turned their eyes for comfort to the cross, were +met by the terrible warning that none but the select few can call God +their Father, and that in all probability their own eternal tortures +were decreed before ever they entered the world? + +The other point to which I must briefly advert is Mr. Ruskin's protest +against the use of words which imply--which leave the least possibility +of hoping for--a mechanical absolution, a pardon of sins that have not +been abandoned. I do not indeed think that the reproach of using such +language falls upon those who are fond of the title of priests alone, +for the doctrines of Calvinism are far more liable to abuse. Nor do I +think that any preaching of our clergy on this subject can be said to +have "turned our cities into loathsome centres of fornication and +covetousness." But here, if anywhere, we ought never to forget the +danger of even seeming to set Theology against Reason and Conscience, of +allowing the least pretext for thinking that a mere intellectual assent +to abstract truths on the one hand, a mere acceptance of ecclesiastical +ordinances on the other, can wipe away sins; or that a heart unpurified +by charity and obedience, could be at rest even in the kingdom of +heaven. + + + + + _From the Rev._ CANON COOPER, _Vicar of Grange-over-Sands_. + + +Thank God, all good men are broader and better than their creed,--better +and broader, I mean, than those parts of their creed which they insist +upon most, because they distinguish them from other people. (These +distinguishing points are always of the least importance, in my +opinion.) And with my experience of sermons for nearly forty years (for +I was very early "called upon to hear sermons"), I am not conscious of +such universal omissions on the part of the "priests" of the Church of +England as Mr. Ruskin affirms. The universality of the _love_ of God the +_Father_, embracing even the "_wicked rich_" as well as the "wicked +poor," is largely dwelt upon by all "schools." + +The kingdom of God _in this present sinful world_ is preached and is +laboured for. In the present, however, it is more correctly described as +the _kingdom of Christ_. When "the end comes," "He shall deliver up the +kingdom to God, _even the Father_" (1 Cor. xv. 24, and _seqq._) As for +denouncing the sins of the rich, this is largely done, and especially by +"lively young ecclesiastics" in great towns. And as to preaching +forgiveness without amendment, no man of common sense can do that; but +Mr. Ruskin may say that common sense is rare among the clergy; and some +may be afraid to preach morality, because of an old-fashioned +superstition that _morality_ is opposed to the _Gospel_. However, I do +not hear much of such preaching. As for the duty of every man to do +something of the work of the world for his daily bread, that is largely +taught; and I believe that the kingdom of God is coming in that respect. +A great deal of the drudgery of the world is done by big men now. Also I +think that the sinfulness of _omission_ is much insisted on by the +clergy, as it is abundantly noticed in the Prayer Book, in accordance +with the clear teaching of Christ. And the same may be said upon the +_personal guilt_ of sin. A good clergyman never allows his people to +shelter themselves _in a crowd_. + +I do not feel the force of the taunt about our saying every week, "There +is no health in us," because the most "healthy" Christian finds out +always fresh failings as his conscience grows more healthy (not morbidly +sensitive), and he is always ready to join in the general confession to +his dying day. + +There is some value in the remark about Christian parents putting their +children into situations where they will be tempted to worship the +devil in order to win the kingdom of the world; but here, as elsewhere, +the exaggeration, for the sake of being forcible, is too marked. + + + + + _From the Rev._ HENRY M. FLETCHER. + + +"Yes," I should say, "it is possible to put the Gospel of Christ into +such plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it, +and plain men do understand it. And it is not left to be gathered out of +(any of) the Thirty-nine Articles, which are meant not for simple but +for clerkly people." + +You seem to have felt it startling that Mr. Ruskin should ask for a +simple and comprehensible statement of the Christian Gospel--at least +Mr. Ruskin represents the case so. What Christ's ministers are bidden to +go into all the world and preach is--the good news that God has +reconciled the world unto Himself in Jesus Christ His Son; and that +whosoever will accept this Jesus as His Lord and Saviour shall have +eternal life through Him. You could not, I think, arrive at a +definition of what the Gospel of Christ is by explaining the terms of +the Lord's Prayer. + +You must tell first about _Jesus_, our Lord, and what He has done, +before child or man can have any proper notion of "the Gospel." The +Gospel is a message from "Our Father which is in Heaven," of His love, +and of what His love--the love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--has +devised and executed for the redemption and glorification (through +sanctification) of His rebellious children. + +There can be small objection taken to Mr. Ruskin's proposal to make the +Lord's Prayer "a foundation of Gospel teaching, as containing what all +Christians are agreed upon as first to be taught," if the "Gospel +teaching" is understood to be "teaching the truth to _Christians_." But +"the Gospel teaching or preaching," which is spoken of by Mr. Ruskin, is +"Gospel preaching" to the world not yet Christian, either Jewish or +heathen; and the Lord's Prayer cannot properly be taken as a foundation +of Gospel teaching to it. It must be told first of Jesus and His work, +and must have owned Him "Lord," before it can rightly be taught from +_His_ prayer. This prayer can have no _authority_ but to those who have +become His disciples. Those who are already His disciples learn +naturally from Him their relation and their duty to His Father and their +Father. St. Paul, in preaching to the Athenians, dwells not on the +Fatherhood _of God_, but on the need of repentance as a preparation for +the judgment which awaits all. "Jesus and the Resurrection" was what +they heard of first from this model preacher. + + + + + _From the Rev._ A. T. DAVIDSON. + + +MY DEAR SIR,--Permit me to say one thing with regard to the +correspondence which has passed between Mr. Ruskin and yourself. + +Profitable as it is to listen to Mr. Ruskin, the student of Mr. +Maurice's writings will merely find in these remarkable letters an +additional plea on behalf of those truths for which Mr. Maurice so +bravely and so passionately contended. It is most refreshing to find two +such teachers in accord; and probably there will be many who will learn +from Mr. Ruskin what they never would have learnt, or even sought for, +from Mr. Maurice. It is, of course, for the truth, and not for his +individual statement of it, that Mr. Ruskin, even as Mr. Maurice did, +contends. It will, I am sure, be a matter of small moment to him so long +as the truth be sought for, whether it be arrived at by means of these +letters, or by means of Mr. Maurice's books on "The Lord's Prayer," "The +Prayer Book," and "The Commandments." + +Believe me, my dear Sir, to be yours faithfully. + + + + + _From the Rev._ EDWARD GEOGHEGAN. + + + BARDSEA VICARAGE, ULVERSTON. + +"Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a +friend. Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness: and let him +reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my +head." + +It is in the spirit which is expressed in these words that I desire to +offer the following notes on Mr. Ruskin's Letters. Among the charges +which he brings against the clergy are the following:-- + +That we have no clear idea of our calling, or of the Gospel of Christ +(Letters III. and IV.) + +That we profane the name of God in the pulpit (Letter VI.) + +That we teach that every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the +Lord, and He delighteth in them (Letter VIII.) + +That we hold our office to be that, not of showing men how to do their +Father's will on earth, but how to get to heaven without doing any of it +either here or there (Letter VIII.) + +That we neither profess to understand what the will of the Lord is, nor +to teach anybody else to do it (Letter VIII.) + +That we pretend to absolve the sinner from his punishment, instead of +purging him from his sin (Letter VIII.) + +That we patronize and encourage all the iniquity of the world by +steadily preaching away the penalties of it (Letter VIII.) + +That we gather, each into himself, the curious dual power and +Janus-faced majesty in mischief of the prophet that prophesies falsely, +and the priest that bears rule by his means (Letter VIII.) + +That we do not exercise discipline by keeping wicked people out of +church (Letter VI.) + +That we do not require each member of our flocks to tell us what they do +to earn their dinners (Letter IX.) + +That we encourage people in hypocrisy, by inviting them to the +authorized mockery of a confession of sin (Letter X.) + +I cannot examine the evidence which Mr. Ruskin possesses in support of +these charges, as he has not produced it in these Letters. Neither can I +attempt to refute the accusations. To prove a negative is always +difficult; it becomes an impossible task when the indictment is laid not +against any individuals mentioned by name, but against a whole order. I +will only observe, that even if all these charges be true, the people of +England are not in such evil case as Mr. Ruskin fancies. The laity of +England possess the inestimable advantage of not being dependent on the +sermons of their clergy for either doctrine, or correction, or +instruction in righteousness. Even though a clergyman should never +utter certain doctrines of Christ from the pulpit, or reprove certain +sins, he is obliged to do so at the font, at the lectern, and at the +altar. Although from the pulpits of the fifty hundreds of clergy whom +Mr. Ruskin heard, he never heard so much as _one_ clergyman heartily +proclaiming that no covetous person, which is an idolater, hath any +inheritance in the kingdom of God, he must have often heard this +proclamation from the altar, in the epistle for the third Sunday in +Lent, and from the lectern whenever the fifth chapter of the Epistle to +the Ephesians is read for the lesson. + +Again, if any clergyman teaches from the pulpit that for the redemption +of the world people ought to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the +Son (Letter V.), he is obliged to publicly contradict his own teaching +as often as he says the General Thanksgiving, and the collects in the +Book of Common Prayer. + +Again, if any clergyman teaches from the pulpit that any one who does +evil is good in the sight of the Lord, or that there is any other +salvation except a salvation from sin, he is obliged to publicly +contradict that teaching by everything which he says in the church out +of the pulpit. + +Again, if any clergyman preaches away the penalties of sin (Letter +VIII.), he is obliged to publicly contradict his preaching every Ash +Wednesday, when he reads the general sentences of God's cursing against +impenitent sinners. + +Mr. Ruskin asks (Letter III.), "Can this Gospel of Christ be put into +such plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it?" +I answer that the English Church has tried to do this in the Catechism, +in which every baptized child is taught in very simple and plain words +the gospel, or good news, that God the Father has, in His Son Jesus +Christ, adopted him or her into His family, and therein offers him or +her the continual help of the Holy Ghost. + +Mr. Ruskin complains that the clergy do not teach the people the meaning +of the Lord's Prayer (Letter VI.) He must assume that the clergy neglect +to teach children the Church Catechism, in which is an answer to the +question, "What desirest thou of God in this prayer?" It is an answer +which would probably satisfy Mr. Ruskin. He would see that "Hallowed be +Thy name" does not merely mean that people ought to abstain from bad +language. And in the explanation of the third commandment, he would see +that something more is forbidden than letting out a round oath (Letter +VI.) + +Mr. Ruskin complains that the clergy do not prevent the entrance among +their congregations of persons leading openly wicked lives (Letter VI.) +Before this can be charged on the clergy as a sin, he should show that +they have power and authority to do this. In the service for Ash +Wednesday he will find that the clergy express their desire for a +restoration of the godly discipline of the primitive Church, which Mr. +Ruskin also desires. But he ought to know that such restoration must be +the work not of the clergy only, but of the whole body of the faithful. + +Mr. Ruskin insinuates that the clergy have no clear idea of their +calling (Letter III.) If this be so, it is certainly not the fault of +the Church, seeing that the nature of the calling of a clergyman is +plainly set forth in the Offices for the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, +and Deacons. But if one may form an opinion from many published sermons +by English clergymen of various schools of thought, and from their +speeches in Church Congresses and elsewhere, and from their pastoral +work as parish priests, I should be inclined to think that they are not +quite so ignorant of the nature of their calling and of the Gospel of +Christ as Mr. Ruskin supposes them to be, and that of some of the sins, +negligences, and ignorances which, in these Letters, he lays to their +charge, they may plead not guilty, or at least not proven by Mr. Ruskin. + + + + + BARDSEA, ULVERSTON, + _November 3rd, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I thank you for your letter, which I received this +morning. Second thoughts are not always the best. Your own first thought +about the motto which I prefixed to my notes was right; your second +thought was wrong. It never occurred to me that anyone could possibly +suppose that that motto was by me intended to be applied to myself, +inasmuch as in these notes there is no "wound" inflicted on Mr. Ruskin, +or even any "rebuke." On the contrary, I assume that he has evidence in +support of his charges, although he has not produced it. The "rebuke" to +which I alluded was _Mr. Ruskin's_ rebuke. _He_ is the "friend" whose +wounds are faithful, and whose smitings are a kindness. For I have not +the least doubt of his good-will towards the clergy, or of his earnest +desire to see them all performing their sacred duties with zeal and +knowledge. And it was as my acknowledgment of this that I prefixed the +motto. With you I firmly believe that the standard which he takes is +"lofty and Christian," and that it is one towards which we ought all of +us to aim. The object of my notes was to show that the laity of England +have, in the authorized teaching of the Church, a sufficient safeguard +against any erroneous teaching which they may possibly hear from the +pulpit or in the private ministrations of the clergy, and also a +supplement to any defective teaching. + + Very truly yours, + EDWARD GEOGHEGAN. + + + + + _From_ JOSEPH GILBURT, Esq. + + + _Christmas Day_, 1879. + +The words "Thy will be done" are generally coupled with resignation, and +very often with patience under chastisement. It is always to us a +sad-coloured sentence, and a sentimental illuminator of the Lord's +Prayer would in all probability make it so. Now, if we think for a +moment what the state of things would be if the will of the Lord were +done, we shall see it should be the brightest sentence we could +conceive. God's will is our weal. Aspiration, not resignation, is the +characteristic of its doing. There would certainly be no death,--that is +decidedly contrary to His will; and by-and-by, when His will is done, +there will be none. For the present, while His will is not yet done, we +have the sure and certain hope that death will be--nay, is--conquered by +anticipation. + +If His will were done, all beautiful things would flourish, and all +minds would answeringly rejoice in them. + +Our men of the piercing eye--Turners, Hunts, Ruskins, etc.--show us, +till we almost worship the state of things in cloud and mountain, river +and sea, in hedgerow and wayside, even in cathedral and campanile, where +God's will is done, and we are enchanted with their beauty. It is God's +will that stones should be laid truly and carven well, and aptly +described. And our men of the probe and the lens, the scientific openers +of nature's secrets, are daily demonstrating new beauties in which the +will of the Lord is done in the formation of bodies and working of +forces. It is mere truism to add to this that the will of the Lord being +done, none of the ills that are all of them indirectly or directly the +result of not doing it could occur, and resignation would have no scope +for exercise. There was One who always did it, and He for three years +made sundry parts of Palestine a heaven,--with what results a many +quondam poor folk testified. This leads me to say that I like to look +upon the word heaven as a participle instead of a noun, as the state of +being heaved or raised, rather than a place: and for this reason. The +experience of every one of us suffices to prove that we are never so +_heaven_, or raised in true happiness, moral dignity, and worth, as +when we are in the company of one greater, wiser, or better than +ourselves. Those who lead a humdrum life among mean persons, can testify +what a heaven it is to be transplanted for ever so short a time to the +company of a great and good man. Now the culminating, indeed +all-absorbing, attraction of the heaven we all look to, is the presence +and the companionship of the greatest and best; and the experience of +ourselves tallies with the promise of St. John that it will have the +effect of making us "like Him," when "we shall see Him as He is." Surely +being _heaven_, or raised like that, is superior to any Mahomet's +paradise that we can invent or distil out of the poetical parts of the +Scriptures. + + + + + _From the Rev._ ARCHER GURNEY. + + +Mr. Ruskin's view as to the duty of basing all upon the Father's love is +essentially sound and orthodox; and he is also right in bidding all men +lead self-denying lives,--in this sense, that they should give up time +and labour to the endeavour to help their brethren; but he fails +utterly, hopelessly, to realize the Incarnation and its glorious +consequences, how all human life and love,--how art, science, knowledge, +enjoyment, are sanctified by God's becoming man; sharing this human life +of ours,--not to trample upon it as an unholy thing, but to consecrate +it to God's service. Such is our call. We must enjoy the beautiful to +vindicate enjoyment. We do not please God by casting all His choicest +gifts away. To give all we have to feed the poor is the way to make men +poor, and is false charity. Use rather the mammon of this world to God's +honour and glory, and when ye fail, the good works that you have done +shall plead for your entrance into everlasting habitations; for the way +to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, permanently, is to teach men +and women to help themselves, and to find employment and reward for the +exercise of their powers and energies. + + + + + _From the Rev._ J. H. A. GIBSON, _Brighton_. + + +To Mr. Ruskin, then, asking us to define ourselves as a body, I reply, +We are presbyters and deacons, deriving our authority from the +episcopate, who themselves form links in that spiritual chain which +binds both ourselves and them, by perpetual succession, in one communion +and fellowship, with the Apostles, and to whom has been committed the +office of consecrating and sending forth labourers to work in the Lord's +vineyard. + +But Mr. Ruskin proceeds, "And our business as such." Our business as +such! Well, if we have in any satisfactory manner proved our first +point--_that_ is, the authority with which we act--we may fairly say to +Mr. Ruskin, "Do you put this question, 'What is your business?' to your +lawyer or doctor?" Does he ask the same question of the clergy of any +other portion of the Catholic Church? We shall not wish to insult Mr. +Ruskin by attempting to explain to him the duties of the priesthood, +with which, doubtless, he is well acquainted. + +But he asks, "Do we look upon ourselves as attached to any particular +State, and bound to the promulgation of any particular tenets?" We are +undoubtedly attached to the particular sphere to the which we are sent +by those whose office is to provide the various parts of God's vineyard +with labourers. The Anglican Church is the legitimate representative of +the Catholic Church of Christ in England; and we, as clergy of this +Church, minister for the most part to our countrymen at home, and only +in other countries as the necessities of our colonists and others may +require. And, as subscribers to the Prayer Book and priests of the +Church of England, we are certainly bound to teach faithfully and +honestly her doctrines, neither adding to them nor taking away from them +according to our own individual idiosyncrasies. + + + + + _From the Rev._ CANON GRAY. + + + WOLSINGHAM, _October 13th, 1879_. + +MY DEAR PENRHYN,--Will you please to thank Mr. Malleson on my behalf for +the Letters on the Lord's Prayer? I have ever admired Ruskin, and learn +much even when I most differ from him. But if I had the good fortune to +be with you to-morrow, I fear that I should constantly be demurring to +his teaching,--_e.g._ (Letter III.) his supposition that the Thirty-nine +Articles were meant to include a summary of the Gospel; (Letter V.) his +belief that there is need now to warn men against being thankful not to +the Father but only to the Son,--a remnant of the teaching of his youth; +(p. 20) his hard way of speaking as to the Son of Man, Whose human soul, +as that of perfect man, received its knowledge in steps according to His +own will as perfect God; (Letter VII.) his confused distinction between +the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ (see Eph. v. 5 in the +Greek, and remember "_tradendo tenet_" on 1 Cor. xv. 24); his belief +that because no one knoweth the hour of Christ's coming, it cannot be +hastened by prayer; (Letter VIII.) his seeming identification of +claiming interest from a poor man who is in need and necessity, and from +a railway company who borrow money to make more,--speaking, as far as I +can see, of money as if it had no market value like other things; +(Letter X.) the belief that we clergy are not awake to the guilt of sins +of omission; (Letter X.) the inability to see that the nearer and nearer +by God's grace we come, in answer to prayer, to purity and holiness, the +more we _realize_ our distance from them; and that his objection to our +Liturgy might be adapted into one against the Lord's Prayer, in which we +pray daily for forgiveness of sins, and deliverance from evil, showing +that we never shall be so delivered as no longer to need forgiveness; +(Letter XI.) the supposition that any one state of life is necessarily +more full of temptations than another, as though the fruit of a tree +were not to Eve what the glory of the world was to the Son of Man, at +least in the eye of the Tempter. + +I am ashamed to jot down thus obscurely the points on which I should +have liked to speak, and I know that our brethren can fully deal with +them. On the other hand (Letter VIII.) there is much to move us, and +lead to searchings of heart. As to the timidity and coldness with which +the Church is attacking the crying sins of our day, one often feels how +we need some among us to speak as the prophets did to the men of their +generation, and we may be thankful to have our shortcomings brought home +to us by words like Ruskin's. + +I wish I were not writing so hurriedly. + +Remember me most affectionately to all my old and true friends who are +with you to-morrow. + + +[NOTE.--_March 12th, 1880_:-- + +Mr. Malleson has kindly brought this letter of mine again before me. +Hasty and concise as it was, I have no wish to expand it, as Mr. +Ruskin's Letters are now _publici juris_, and in the hands of many a +critic, who will rejoice to deal with them according to his wisdom. I +should be thankful, however, for leave to add a few words on one point. +I cannot help having misgivings as to whether I was right in demurring +without hesitation to "the supposition that one state of life is +necessarily more free from temptations than another," for I well know +that in favour of such a supposition there is a strong _consensus_ of +just men. I am, however, one of those who believe that the shorter +Beatitude, "Blessed be ye poor," (Luke vi. 20) is explained by the +longer, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." I see, also, that the +difficulty with which "they that have riches" enter the kingdom of God +is reasserted with a qualification in the very next verse, which speaks +of those "who trust in riches" (St. Mark x. 23, 24). "Who then can be +saved?" asked the disciples, who, poor men indeed themselves, first +heard of this difficulty, instinctively perceiving, it may be, that it +has its root in temptations from which in one shape or other no one is +free. I read that "the cares of this world," as well as "the +deceitfulness of riches," choke the Word; and I am sure that into the +number of those "who will be rich," or "who are wishing to be rich," and +so "fall into temptation," a poor man may but too easily find his way. I +like to remember that when "the beggar died," he was carried into the +bosom of one who had been "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold;" +and I think that very deep and far-stretching may be the meaning of the +words of the wise man, "The rich and poor meet together, and the Lord is +the Maker of them all."] + + + + + _From the Rev._ H. N. GRIMLEY, _Norton Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds_. + + +Mr. Ruskin's Letters have already been closely scrutinized. What have +seemed to be blemishes in them have been commented on. They have been +spoken of as somewhat random utterances--as utterances such as are +pardonable in a layman, but would be inexcusable in a clergyman who +should endeavour to instruct his brethren. It has been said of them that +they manifest a want of knowledge of teaching constantly being given +from Church of England pulpits. It would be quite possible for the +present paper to be devoted to a continuation of the like free criticism +of the Letters. I might ask, for instance, whether Mr. Ruskin, after (in +Letter V.) speaking with condemnation of a plan of salvation which sets +forth the Divine Son as appeasing the wrath of the Father in heaven, +does not himself give expression to words, as to the love of the Father, +which almost imply that in his estimation the Divine mind is not in +unity in itself? I might further ask for Mr. Ruskin to put more +definiteness into his remarks on usury, and to particularize the +special forms of that condemnable practice which the clergy should +boldly denounce. The few hints which he throws out on this subject show +that to his own thoughts there is present an exalted socialism. He +himself in previous writings, while shadowing forth a social system +based on unselfishness, has carefully deprecated any revolutionary +attempt to hasten the establishment of such a system, and would prefer +that it should be waited for while it quietly and with orderliness +evolves itself out of the present imperfect order of things. Is it not +so evolving itself? Does not the co-operative movement, now steadily +advancing, spring out of the recognition of the fact that mutual welfare +is a far more excellent thing to be attained than the enrichment of the +few at the expense of the many? And if, with regard to the land +question, any readjustment of relations is made, will it not be made in +the light of the same beneficent principle? If, however, the clergy were +to give heed to Mr. Ruskin's words, and at once proceed to the +indiscriminate excommunication of usurers, would they not be initiating +a social revolution, altogether different from that orderly upgrowth of +a better state of things which has commended itself aforetime to Mr. +Ruskin himself? My own impression is that I shall be giving voice to a +wish that will spring up wherever Mr. Ruskin's Letters may be read, if I +say that a clearer, more definite utterance on the usury question would +be welcomed. The clergy everywhere would receive with thankfulness any +hints as to how they might hasten the coming of the day when the Church +of Christ will no longer embrace within her borders the few, with a +useless excess of wealth, and around them the unhappy many, hopelessly, +squalidly destitute; along, too, with a vast number of toiling teachers, +clergy, artists, and literary workers, living mostly on the verge of +pennilessness--men of whose existence Mr. Ruskin has, in earlier +writings, expressed himself as keenly and sympathetically conscious. + +But I will not linger on such parts of Mr. Ruskin's Letters as may seem +to display inconsistency, or to need more precision of language before +they can be practically useful. I will proceed to speak of those for +which, as it seems to me, the clergy may unhesitatingly be very +grateful to Mr. Ruskin for laying them before them. + +And first, I think we cannot be other than thankful to Mr. Ruskin for +sounding at the outset a note of catholicity. He asks the clergy of the +English Church (let me say he asks us,--he asks you and me), whether we +look upon ourselves as the clergy of a mere insular Church, or as the +clergy of the Church Universal. Is the teaching we are continually +giving utterance to as to the conduct of life in harmony with, or +different from, the teaching of the Christian Churches on the Continent +of Europe? Mr. Ruskin's tone, in asking these questions, is such as +implies that it would be no satisfaction to him to hear from us that we +rejoice in considering ourselves as severed from the clergy of the +Christian Church abroad. Indeed, he goes on to assume that we, with one +consenting voice, admit our fellowship with the rest of +Christendom--that we recognize as our brothers the clergy of the Church +of France, and of the Church of Italy, and of the Church everywhere. + +Mr. Ruskin thus does not lend the support of his name to any useless +Protestantism. There are senses in which the whole Christian Church must +ever be a Protestant Church, and in which even individual members may +from time to time raise protesting voices. The Church must ever lift up +her protest against all influences that work in the world for +evil--against whatsoever tends to overthrow the Christian ideals of +individual, family, social, national, and international life. She must +protest against all hindrances, even though they may spring up within +her own borders, which tend to prevent her from putting any beneficent +impress upon human handiwork and upon manifestations of human genius. +She must protest against the very Protestantism in her midst which has +served to paganize art and to demoralize the drama, by banishing both to +an outer region of darkness which Gospel rays cannot be expected to +illumine. She must protest vigorously against the mischievous +Protestantism which impoverishes the intellect and chills the +affections, by causing men to devote the whole energies of their lives +to protesting against systems of thought with which they are very +imperfectly acquainted, and to maintaining an attitude of perpetual +suspicion as to others' aims and motives. Under the influence of such +Protestantism as this, many have been possessed with the assurance that +a vast number of the clergy of Christendom live for no other end than to +conspire against freedom, to disseminate falsities, and to work ruin +amongst human souls. This Protestantism is fast ceasing to have any +power amongst us; still, as it is not quite extinct, it is comforting to +find that Mr. Ruskin does not attribute it to the main body of those +whom he addresses. + +To me it seems that an habitual protesting attitude on the part of those +who are called upon to be the teachers of the Church implies that they +have not themselves properly entered the temple of Christian truth. He +to whom Christian doctrine has revealed itself in all its wondrous +harmony cannot do other than devote himself to unfolding to others what +is ever present to his own mind, so that he may aid in building up their +thoughts consistently and symmetrically, and thus help to establish them +firmly in the Christian faith. + +We may, then, it seems to me, express our thankfulness that Mr. Ruskin +has spoken, though ever so briefly, a word of encouragement to the +clergy of the English Church amongst whom the thought of a future of +reunion for Christendom has been welcomed. Mr. Ruskin is familiar with +the practical working of the Christian Church in Italy and elsewhere on +the Continent, and seeing, as he has seen, that her influence is exerted +towards securing an orderly and healthy state of social life, he does +not give circulation to the indiscriminate calumnies which were once +wont to be uttered, and which were alike at variance with the truth and +provocative of a mischievous severance of Christians from one another. + +But we must, I think, be more especially grateful to Mr. Ruskin for his +calling widespread attention to the great Christian doctrine of the +Fatherhood of God. There is especial need for this being uplifted before +the thoughts of men at the present day, and it is being so uplifted. The +more it is upheld, the more fully will it be discerned. It cannot be +said that the doctrine is not accepted within the English Church. Still, +it has not yet been received in all its fulness. Amongst the +separatists outside the borders of our Church, the doctrine that God is +the Father of all humanity, and the loving Father too, is rejected in +two extreme ways. The set of "believers" who adopt the one extreme view +consider that the Lord's Prayer--so luminous, as Mr. Ruskin reminds us, +with the thought of God's fatherly love--should be used only by the +elect, such as themselves, and that all others have no right to address +God as their Father. The other set of so-called "believers" considers +with a deplorable Pharisaism that they have arrived at such a stage of +perfection as to be beyond the need for using words which require them +to ask every day for forgiveness of their trespasses. Why should they +ask for such, they say, when their trespasses are non-existent? If they +are children of the Father they are not so in the same sense as those +who conscientiously use the prayer addressed to the Father in heaven. I +regret that Mr. Ruskin's facile pen has betrayed him into writing some +words with reference to our Liturgy which bring him momentarily into +sympathy with these self-righteous ones who have no need to confess +that they want more health of soul. + +But the doctrine of the loving Fatherhood of God, as revealed to us in +Christ, is one that is unfolding itself more and more clearly to the +Christian world. If it has unfolded itself to us we may aid in its +increased discernment. It is one that involves the acceptance of the +thought that all human life and every sphere of human endeavour are +under Divine patronage. God is in every way our Father. All human +excellences whatsoever exist in their fulness and perfection in Him. As +they are manifested in us and in our brothers and sisters around us, +they are Divine excellences becoming incarnate on the realm of humanity. + +Childhood, for instance, as it manifests its sweetness and winsomeness +in Christian homes, is an outcome of the eternal childhood which dwells +in God, and which was manifested supremely to the world in the life of +the Divine Child at Bethlehem and Nazareth. + +So that the doctrine of the loving Fatherhood of God has sheltering +beneath it the thought of the divineness of childhood. Clustering with +it are many kindred thoughts. There is the divineness of youth, the +frankness of Christian boyhood, the tender grace of Christian +girlhood,--these are manifestations of the eternal youth abiding in the +Divine Lord of humanity. + +I might speak to you in like manner of the divineness of manhood and of +womanhood, and of the divineness of old age. All womanly excellences, as +well as all manly virtues, reside in the Divine One. I might speak to +you of the divineness of wedded life, the divineness of Christian +fatherliness and motherliness. The divineness of the student's life and +of the teacher's life might also be dwelt upon. The divineness of the +ministry of reconciliation, in which ministry all may take part who help +others to separate themselves from sin and selfishness and to enter into +union with God and His life of love,--this I present to you as a +fruitful thought. The divineness of all efforts tending towards the +solace and comforting of suffering human souls,--that too is one of the +beneficent thoughts involved in the great Christian truth that God is +the Father of humanity. + +But the same great truth leads us to the discernment of other useful +thoughts. I might speak of them as connected with the divineness of all +toil which has for its object the increase of human knowledge, the +gathering together of the stored-up lessons of the past, the beautifying +of the daily life, the refining and spiritualizing of the daily thoughts +of the great brotherhood and sisterhood. It would thus be quite +justifiable to speak of the divineness of scientific toil, inasmuch as +that has for its aim the unfolding of the thoughts of God, of which all +appearances of the material world are the outcome and manifestation. +Thus too I might speak of the divineness of the work of those who enable +us to see the results of the Divine guidance bestowed on the world in +the ages past. I might speak of the divineness of the work of the artist +who devotes himself to acquiring skill in subtly entangling in the +colours he puts on canvas the sentiment underlying the landscape he +reverently looks at, which to him is a manifestation of a heaven of +beauty unseen by heedless eyes. I might also speak of the divineness of +the labours of the Christian poet, who presents to the world truth in +its feminine and most winning aspects. + +When I should have spoken of all these things they could all be summed +up into one phrase--the divineness of Humanity. And this is what I have +faintly attempted to show necessarily springs up for recognition as the +doctrine of the Fatherhood of God presents itself to us in all its +impressiveness. + +I must hasten to a close. I have said that Mr. Ruskin in what he asks us +with reference to our relation to the Church in other countries sounds a +note of catholicity. In what I have myself said as to Protestantism I +have urged nothing inconsistent with a thorough loyalty to the principle +of Christian individualism. But individualism in utter revolt against +authority leads only to confusion and to a multiplicity of tyrannies. +Individualism thrives best under the protection of a generous +all-embracing authority. Individualism before taking up the attitude of +revolt should consider that it, by brave patience and a reverent +submissiveness to all higher influences around it, may contribute +beneficently to the authority of the future, and increase the +generousness and catholicity of its sway. + +I will further remark that Mr. Ruskin's words as to the Fatherhood of +God are also a catholic utterance. For the Fatherhood of God when +pondered upon helps us to see that no sphere of human effort is beyond +His control; that His house is one of many mansions of thought and +affection and loving toil; that His heavenly kingdom is one including +all domains on which human energies can be directed, over which human +thoughts can roam, on which human love can lavish itself. + + + + + _From the Rev._ CANON E. H. M'NEILE, _Liverpool_. + + +What is the exact question asked in Letter II.? + +Is it whether the clergy are or are not teachers of universal science? + +If so, we answer, Yes, we are teachers of the science most universal of +all, namely, the knowledge of God, which is eternal life: and of the way +to attain it, which is holiness; and the principles of this science, +which are universal, are not, as in other sciences, discovered by human +research, but are revealed by God. + +Does the question imply that there are points of science on which it is +of no consequence what opinions a teacher holds? And if so, does it +further mean that all matters of doctrine, such as are defined in the +Thirty-nine Articles, are of this nature? + +If so, I answer that it is only the theories or speculations of +scientific investigators about which variety of opinion is immaterial, +not the essential principles of the science; and that we cannot exclude +all questions of doctrine from among those principles. I do not know +what is meant by holding different opinions on points of science. About +the facts of science there can be no difference of opinion; but there +may be about the bearings, and the inferences to be drawn from them. + + +LETTER III + +Here is a definite question. My answer is, Yes, but we do not refer to +the Thirty-nine Articles for a statement of the Gospel, but rather to +the Apostles' Creed, which contains the simplest summary of the facts on +which the Gospel rests. (See 1 Cor. xv. 1, etc.) + + +LETTER IV + +Here I answer, No. The Lord's Prayer was not intended to be a statement +of the Gospel, but the language of those who have accepted it. No doubt +the terms of the prayer may be so explained as to bring in a definition +of the Gospel, working backwards; but a complete explanation would be +longer than the Thirty-nine Articles. There seems to be a serious +confusion of thought here between the offer of salvation to sinners +estranged from God, and the utterance towards God of His reconciled +children. + + +LETTER V + +The Lord's Prayer is elementary teaching for Christians, but it is not +the first thing to be taught to those outside the family of God. The +truth that we have a Father in heaven is a fundamental part of the +Gospel. It is assumed in the Lord's Prayer; and so is the further truth +that our Father of His tender love towards us has given His Son to die +for us, that we may be delivered from the "consuming fire" which sin, +not God, has kindled; and thus we have indeed a blessed scheme of pardon +for which we are to be thankful to _both_ the Father and the Son. This +makes _all_ the clauses of the apostolic blessing intelligible and +living. + + +LETTER VI + +Page 14: "For _other_ sins," etc. I think this is an incorrect comment. +The force of the threat is positive, not comparative. The language of +the law is similar towards every sin. + +In what is said about the abomination of hypocrisy in prayer we +cordially agree. God give us grace to avoid it ourselves, and to warn +our brethren faithfully against it! But in what follows there is an +assumption of a power of discipline which the clergy do not possess, +and which I fear the laity would be most unwilling to concede to them. +Mr. Ruskin seems also to slip into the old error of the servants in the +parable of the tares. + + +LETTER VII + +On page 21 St. John xiv. 9 is incorrectly cited, and it is difficult to +know the exact drift of the writer. + +I object to the statement that "in all His relations to us and commands +to us," etc. (See, _e.g._, St. Matt. xxviii. 18-20.) + +As to His not knowing whether His prayer could be heard, see St. John +xi. 41, 42. + +I think it is incorrect to say that our Lord Himself _used_ the prayer +He gave us, at least in its entirety as it stands. + +Pages 20, 21: Mr. Ruskin seems to me to draw most strongly the very +comparison to which he objects. Surely the kingdom of Christ _is_ the +kingdom of His Father. (Rev. xi. 15, xii. 10; Eph. v. 5.) Does not an +unwillingness to accept the true divinity of our Lord underlie this +passage? + + +LETTER VIII + +Page 25: There is surely a mistake here. Personal sanctification and +national prosperity are very different things. A nation has no existence +except in this world; therefore its prosperity is the chief end to be +aimed at; and this is no doubt promoted by the holiness of its people. +But a man has another life hereafter; and comfort and wealth are not the +end of his being. If granted, they are means to his sanctification, not +_vice versa_. + +It seems to me that Mr. Ruskin in this Letter writes somewhat +recklessly, and that he must have been singularly unfortunate in his +experience of preachers if he has never heard a faithful sermon against +covetousness, which is the idolatry of our age. On page 26 he seems to +fall into a great error in supposing that the proclamation of a free +pardon for sin tends to encourage it. If a man is to be delivered from +the power of his sins, he must first be delivered from the guilt of +them. + +No doubt the grace of God has been abused by some; and St. Paul himself +felt that his doctrine was open to such abuse (Rom. vi. 1, 15). It is +not, I think, just to attribute the corruption of our great cities to +the teaching of the clergy. It is rather to be ascribed to the absence +of that teaching. + + +LETTER X + +Whatever justice there may be (and no doubt there is much) in Mr. +Ruskin's accusations against us clergy, he is surely under an entire +misapprehension in the charge which he here makes against our Liturgy. + +Our Prayer Book is doubtless constructed for the use of believing +Christians, and is not fitted for the impenitent; but its adaptation to +the needs of the repentant publican and of the advanced Christian is +most wonderful. And that a form of prayer may be so adapted is surely +proved by the Lord's Prayer itself, which Mr. Ruskin says is the _first_ +thing to be taught to all, and which, with all his practice in thinking, +he feels that he cannot adequately expound. + +Surely the repetition of a confession of unholiness casts no slur upon +the efficacy of our prayers for holiness when we recognize that holiness +is progressive, and that spiritual growth may express itself not merely +in new words, but in a heartier utterance of the old ones. As to the +particular expression, "there is no health in us," it needs either the +explanation of St. Paul--"I know that in me, _that is, in my flesh_, +dwelleth no good thing,"--or else to be understood according to the old +meaning of "health," viz., "_saving health_," _salvation_, _deliverance_ +(Psalm cxix. 123, Prayer Book; Isa. lviii. 8; Jer. viii. 15). + +It needs further to be remarked that repentance is not only a single +definite act, but a state of mind. + +I think that underlying all these comments of Mr. Ruskin on the Lord's +Prayer is a failure to recognize the truth of man's fall. + +Human nature is a ruin, not to be restored by a rearrangement of its +fragments. God has provided a remedy, by sending His Son to be the +foundation of a new spiritual building; and every man who is to be built +upon that foundation must himself become a new creature by the +operation of the Holy Ghost. All efforts to improve humanity in the +mass, without the renewal of each separate soul, must fail; and no doubt +the clergy often fall into this mistake. + +The Lord's Prayer is not the prayer of all mankind as they are by +nature. It is a prayer to the possession of which they are brought by +regeneration, and to the enjoyment by conversion. + + E. H. M'NEILE. + + + + + _From the Rev._ P. T. OUVRY. + + +On the meaning of usury, I would add a few words. I start with this +proposition. There is nothing contrary to the will of God for one free +man to buy from another free man anything he wants. I have two +houses,--one I live in, one I let. My tenant pays the market rent of +houses to me, and so both parties are benefited. I have two thousand +pounds. I have no capacity, or opportunity, or desire to use more than +one thousand pounds in trade on my own account. My neighbour has energy +and activity to use more money than he has in trade. He gladly offers me +five per cent. for my spare thousand pounds. I willingly lend it on +those terms. He makes ten per cent. by using it. He gives me five pounds +and has five pounds for himself. If this be usury, it is lawful and +right. + +A number of small cultivators of land have no capital. A money-lender +supplies what they require on condition that they sell their crops to +him at a price which he is able to fix. From the circumstances of the +case the money-lender makes an enormous profit. The cultivator has +barely the necessaries of life. This is usury, in the bad sense of the +term, but is more correctly called oppression or extortion. + +Again, a man lends money to ignorant inexperienced youths, on promise of +repayment when they come of age. This, too, is oppression or extortion. + +Similar oppression is witnessed when bad houses are let to poor people +at high rents. + +It is not, then, that usury, in the sense of oppression or extortion, is +inherent in money-lending; but it belongs equally to every transaction +between man and man, where any unrighteous dealing is practised. + + P. T. OUVRY. + + + + + GRANGE-OVER-SANDS, + _October 1st, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I protested strongly yesterday against our remarks, +made on the spur of the moment, being printed and submitted to Mr. +Ruskin's criticism, and what I said then I feel as strongly still. + +But I have no objection to send, as a comment on his Letters, a volume +of sermons which I published last year, because I think that, in that +upon the hallowing of God's name, I have not taken the restricted view +which Mr. Ruskin accused the clergy of taking, and I think also that +(except in the sermon upon the doctrine of the Trinity, which was +written before the others, and is tinged with the prejudices of early +training), I have set forth God the Father as a Being of infinite, +tender, fatherly love. + +So far as snails may follow in the footsteps of greyhounds, and bats +look in the same direction as eagles, I think some of us clergymen are +getting our feet and our eyes into the same track as Mr. Ruskin's. + +It seems to me that all of us who think upon religious matters, laity or +clergy, whether men of genius or commonplace people, are feeling our way +at present to something better and truer. Men like Mr. Ruskin, like +steamships, dart on to their destination; and feebler minds, like +sailing vessels, are a good deal at the mercy of the _popularis aura_ +and the winds of doctrine, but both are on their way to the same point. + +I send the volume by the same post as this letter. + + Yours very faithfully, + H. R. S. + + + + + _From the Rev._ A. G. K. SIMPSON, _Brighton_. + + +We are convinced that the love of God is the originating cause of all +His dealings with mankind, and are glad to meet him on the broad +platform of "Our Father which art in heaven;" only premising that it is +a platform not new to us, but on which we have long taken our stand. + +But beyond these somewhat general statements of our faith, I doubt +whether it would be possible to put Divine truth into such plain words +as would meet with general acceptance. In proportion to the _minuteness_ +would be the _disagreement_. To take one great truth (perhaps the +greatest of all), would it be possible to put forth a plain and simple +statement, such as all, or the majority, would receive, of the +Atonement? Such a mind as Mr. Ruskin's would not be content with the +forensic view more popular some years ago than now. Wiser, it seems to +me, it is to accept some such teaching as that of Coleridge in "Aids to +Reflection." "The mysterious act, the operative cause," he says, "is +transcendent." "_Factum est_," and beyond the information contained in +the enunciation of the fact, it can be characterized only by its +consequences. It is these consequences which (according to Coleridge) +are illustrated by the four metaphors:-- + + 1. Sin-offering or expiation. + + 2. Reconciliation. + + 3. Redemption. + + 4. Payment of a debt. + +Now, would not a plain, a simple statement, be apt to press the metaphor +too far, and attempt to put into words one aspect of the truth as though +it were the whole? Such a reverent mind as Bishop Butler's reproved the +curiosity which sought to find out the manner of the atonement. "I do +not find," he said, "that it is declared in the Scriptures." And yet the +atonement is only _one_, though perhaps the _chief_, of the many points +of which a true and simple statement must take cognizance. It would be +comparatively easy for the private clergyman to put into words his +thoughts on this subject or that, but then he would be continually +liable to have it urged against him that he had not sufficiently +considered some given point--had not walked round it, and seen it in all +its bearings; that his view was inadequate and incomplete; and, being +fallible and human, some of the objections would doubtless be true, and +the simple and plain statement be, in that respect at least, +misguiding. + + + + + _From the Rev._ G. W. WALL, _Bickerstaffe_. + + + LETTER II + +This Letter professes to contain an "exact question," which is somewhat +singularly inexactly put. In its strict grammatical form it asks for a +definition of the members of a Clerical Council, and their business as +such. This "exact question" is in fact an illustration of the fallacy of +asking two questions in one, though a question demanding to be answered +with "mathematical" precision should have been set with mathematical +accuracy. But here at the outset a protest must be entered against being +called upon to answer a question set in ambiguous words and misleading +phrases, and based upon assumptions which those questioned would reject. +It is impossible to deal with a so-called "axiomatic" question which +instantly passes into a cloudy rhetorical illustration. + +"The attached servants of a particular State." Does that expression +mean, "England, with all thy faults, I love thee still"? or, is it used +in the same sense as "attached to the staff"? But are there many of the +clergy who would say, "I am an attached and salaried servant of the +State, and nothing more?" Are there many who would allow that they were +"salaried" by the State at all? Are there many who would grant that they +had been "examined" and "numbered" and admitted into a "body of +trustworthy persons" either by the State or by its agents? And yet all +these previous questions must be answered before we can consider at all +the "axiomatic" question which the clergy are "earnestly called upon" to +solve. The question set down for solution implies some such inquiries as +these: Is not the Church of England merely a Department of the State of +England? Does not a clergyman belong to the Ecclesiastical Service just +as an _employe_ of the Treasury, or the Home Office, or the Post Office, +belongs to the Civil Service? For example, the authorities at Chamouni +examine and approve of certain men as guides for mountaineering: does +not the English State similarly examine and approve of certain men as +guides for England and the English "in the way known of all good men +that leadeth unto life"? A most fallacious employment of a "universal" +for a "particular," for either the clergy must be excluded from the +number of "all good men," or the assertion that all good men agree in +their knowledge falls to the ground, seeing that in the fourth Letter +the clergy are charged with not having "determined quite clearly" what +the way that leadeth unto life may be. + +But taking this Alpine illustration for what it may be worth, we may +ask, "What does it mean?" Is it not intended to exalt practical +questions, and to depreciate all doctrine and dogma and theological +opinion, either from its liability on the one hand to be narrow or +insular, "Chamounist or Grindelwaldist," or on the other from its +tendency to be vague and transcendental, dealing with "celestial +mountains" and unfathomable "crevasses"? Will it not admit of some such +paraphrase as this, "Your teachings as to Episcopacy or +Congregationalism, seven sacraments or two, and the like, are mere local +opinions, and so away with them; your doctrines as to the Holy Trinity, +the Incarnation, and the like, are mere transcendentalism, and so away +with them also,-- + + 'For modes of faith let zealous bigots fight, + He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'" + +Still it may be allowable to hint that the qualifications of a "guide" +as laid down in this Letter are somewhat peculiar. It might have been +supposed by a plain man that a Chamounist guide was expected to know at +least something as to the localities of the Mer de Glace, the Jardin, or +the Grand Mulets, but he is seemingly to rise superior to any +"Chamounist opinions on geography," and to be prepared to rely only upon +a universal science of locality and athletics, a reliance which has been +the fruitful cause of mountaineering fatalities. + +The reply which most Clerical Councils would return respecting the +"axiomatic" question of this Letter would probably be, "We cannot answer +a fallacy; we are not careful to answer thee in this matter." + + + LETTER III + +A second question is now propounded respecting the Christian Gospel. +"The Gospel of Christ" is spoken of in a connection which seems to +indicate that Luther and Augustine were equally, in the writer's +opinion, the setters forth of a "gospel." Is this an unintentional +disclosure of his estimate of our blessed Lord,--"Rabbi, we know that +Thou art a teacher come from God," and no more than that? For the eighth +Letter contains a sneer at the Gospel that He is our Advocate with the +Father, as one to mend the world with. A confused question follows, +which may mean either, that it is in the first place desirable that the +Gospel should be put into plain words, or, that the first principles of +the Gospel should be put into plain words. Its probable meaning is, "Is +it not desirable that religious teaching should be divested of any +mysteries?" The extraordinary supposition that the Gospel is intended to +be set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles can only be equalled by a +supposition that a treatise on military tactics is embodied in the +Articles of War. Perhaps even some of the axiomatic principles of +mathematics, such as that "a point is that which hath no parts," though +laid down in "plain words and short terms," might sorely perplex "simple +persons." + +But several fallacies underlie this second question. The fallacy that +the moral principles of our nature are necessarily connected with the +extent of our intellectual capacities; the fallacy that Divine Truths +can be adequately expressed through the inaccurate instrument of human +language; the fallacy that deep things are necessarily made plain by the +use of plain words; the fallacy that everything upon which we act is +necessarily understood. A plain man does not refuse to use the telegraph +because he may know nothing about the Correlation of Force, or a simple +person to travel because "space" is beyond his comprehension. If the +Gospel is, as St. Paul says it is, a revelation of the power of God unto +salvation, an amount of mystery must necessarily surround it. Since it +is impossible that the Divine Nature should be to us other than a +mystery, a revelation of Divine purposes such as is the Gospel as +understood by the Church, must remain mysterious also. Only upon the +supposition that our Lord was the teacher of a high but still human +morality can we remove all mystery from the Christian Gospel, if it +still deserve the name. Such teaching might be conveyed in plain words +and short terms, but it would cease to be a Gospel which angels desire +to look into, and could hardly be described as the "manifold wisdom of +God," or be the story of the "love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." + +The Gospel, as the Church understands it, rests upon the revealed fact +of the Incarnation, or the union of the Infinite with the Finite, that +He who is very God of very God became man in order to introduce the +Divine possibility of manhood being made to partake of the Divine +nature; and so long as the triumphal chant ascends that "the Catholic +Faith is this," so long will the Church's Faith be veiled indeed with +mystery, and so long will she continue to gather within her bounds the +humble and holy men of heart, who are content to say, "I cannot +understand: I love." That "God sent His only-begotten Son into the +world that we might live through Him" are short and plain words enough, +and Gospel enough, surely, but the depth of their meaning is +unfathomable by even the most cultivated understanding, to which the +power of God and the wisdom of God may appear to be but foolishness. + + + LETTER IX + +This Letter, after endorsing the expressions of the preceding one, deals +apparently with Capital and Labour. The clergy, if not required to +divide the inheritance among their brethren, or to actually serve +tables, are, taking "Property is theft" as their text, to resolutely and +daily inquire how the dinners of their flock are earned. The gist of the +Letter seems to be that the worker earns and the capitalist steals his +dinner. It is really possible that the clergy do constantly speak the +truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake, +even though they may not subscribe to all the articles of some peculiar +schemes of social science, nor hold some singular doctrines as to +political economy. Doubtless were they to assimilate their conduct to +that of an injudicious district-visitor, they would have to take a new +view of "life and its sacraments," whatever this expression may mean. + +It would seem as if the writer had yet to learn that a Christian Church +may exist teaching the most dogmatic definitions of doctrine, binding, +even in this respect, burdens on men's shoulders grievous to be borne, +while its members may be patterns of self-denial in "offices of temporal +ministry to the poor." He does not appear to regard with favour the +"Evangelistic sect of the English Church;" if this is intended for the +"Evangelical" sect, Charles Kingsley could say, in a certain place, of +its founders, "They were inspired by a strange new instinct that God had +bidden them 'to clothe the hungry and feed the naked.'" Yet these men +thought that "justification by faith only" was the Gospel they were "to +carry to mend the world with, forsooth." + + + LETTER XI + +This concluding Letter calls but for slight remark,--of many portions we +feel _O si sic omnia_! That there is much sorrowful truth underlying the +unmeasured denunciations which have gone before few will care to deny. +Few there are who will not pray to be kept from the evils which the +writer discerns, and against which he inveighs. Such will be the first +to regret that the Letters, as they read them, seem to fall short of the +fulness of the Catholic Faith. "The holy teachers of all nations:" was +our blessed Lord but one of them? There is nothing in the Letters to +show that "the full force and meaning" of Gospel teaching is concerned +with anything beyond wealth, and comfort, and national prosperity, and +domestic peace. Preaching the acceptable year of the Lord is something +more surely than an invective against usury. + +We read that in old times Bezaleel was filled for his own work with the +Spirit of God, but we do not read that he aspired to become a religious +teacher; and when we are told by one eminent in Art that a Church +nineteen centuries old has yet to learn that the "will of the Lord" is a +sanctification which brings comfort and wealth in its train, we think of +a Moses who esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the +treasures of Egypt, and then of a Paul who counted all things but loss +for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. + + G. W. WALL. + + + + + _From_ OXONIENSIS. + + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Many thanks for the pamphlet. You ask me to send you +any remarks I may have to make on the Letters, and I gather from your +note at the beginning of the Letters as they now stand, that you intend +making use of any remarks sent you that may commend themselves to your +judgment. I am not vain enough to think mine of any special value. I +will, however, write you my feelings about them, encouraged to do so by +your statement in the note to the pamphlet, that the use made of +remarks sent you will be anonymous, if it is so desired. + +First, as regards the general tone of the Letters. You tell me that the +majority of the comments you have received have been hostile--people not +taking their medicine without making wry faces. I am only surprised at +the gentleness of the Letters, and I believe that if anyone will take +the trouble to put down for himself on paper the sum of their contents, +he will find it as difficult to gainsay as for careless readers it is +easy to cavil at. On the other hand, the "hostile spirit" is readily +provoked by the way in which some of the teaching of the Letters is put. +Passages like the sixth paragraph in Letter X. appear an objectionable +joke to some--perhaps to most--people; they do not see that it is really +a serious jest, so put for brevity's sake, and that Ruskin might have +put the same note to it as he has put to a passage in the "Crown of Wild +Olive," p. 85, 8vo ed.: "Quite serious all this, though it reads like +jest." I remember once asking Ruskin if his apparent joking in some +Oxford lectures was not likely to lessen his influence, and he at once +said to me, "Remember that most of my apparent jokes are serious, +_ghastly_ jests." I think he would be less often misunderstood, if this +were more often understood. + +Your own preface marks the two main points in the spirit of the Letters. +They are sternly practical, and at the same time their standard is one +of an ideal perfection. People don't see that because the goal cannot be +reached, the road towards it can still be trodden, and therefore they +apply to the road an epithet which applies only to the goal. In this +respect Ruskin's teaching might be mottoed with George Herbert's-- + + "Who aimeth at the sky + Shoots higher much than he that means a tree." + +In fact, Ruskin's teaching, like that of the Bible, is not unpractical, +but _unpractised_. + +I will now take the Letters in detail. The first four of them are merely +introductory to the main matter of the eleven. In these first five two +questions are asked-- + +1. What is a clergyman of the Church of England? And to this the +suggested answer is (whom does it offend?), "A teacher of the Gospel of +Christ to all nations." + +2. What is the teaching of the Gospel he is to teach? What is that +teaching, clearly and simply put? + +Then Letter IV. suggests that the Lord's Prayer may be taken as +containing the cardinal points of that teaching, containing not all that +is to be learnt, but what all have to learn. And so we come to Letter +V.; and I tried, in reading the Letters for myself, to do for them what +Letter III. asks clergymen to do for the Gospel. + +Letter V.--A clergyman's first duty is to make the Lord's Prayer clear +and living to his people. This is what Ruskin has elsewhere insisted on +in other matters--"clear," know your duty and your belief; "living," +realize it in your life--realize it "as a Captain's order, to be obeyed" +("Crown of Wild Olive," Introduction, p. 13. The whole of this +Introduction reads well with these Letters). Then the first clause of +the Prayer is set forth as putting before us God as a loving Father. + +Letter VI.--"Hallowed be Thy name." How do we fulfil the hope in our +lives? How do we betray it? Not in swearing only, as we are apt to +think, but in the blasphemy of false and hypocritical prayer to, and +praise of, _preaching about_ God (last paragraph of the Letter). +Clergymen, it is added, can prevent openly wicked men from being in +their congregations (they are supposed to do so: Rubrics 2 and 3 before +the Holy Communion Service); they can not only compel the wicked poor +into, but expel the wicked rich out of, churches. God sees the heart: +the clergy should look to the hands and lips. + +Letter VII.--"Thy kingdom come:"--not an allusion to the second coming +of the Son, which we cannot hasten, but to the coming of the kingdom of +God the Father, which we can. This is again illustrated by the "Crown of +Wild Olive" (I daresay it is by others of Ruskin's books, but it is +convenient to refer chiefly to one, and that the one which contains what +he calls his most biblical lecture), p. 56: "Observe it is a kingdom +that is to come to us; we are not to go to it. Also it is not to be a +kingdom of the dead, but of the living. Also it is not to come all at +once, but quietly ... without observation. _Also it is not to come +outside of us, but in our hearts: 'the kingdom of God is within you.'_" +This is the sense in which we can hasten _it_. + +Letter VIII. begins with a hit at the pleasure priests take in their +priesthood's dignity, and at their avoidance of its unpleasant duties, +and at their sometimes wearisome preaching. + +Have they ever taught "Thy will be done," as it should be--1. In our own +sanctification; 2. In understanding that will, and doing it, and +striving to get it done (knowing their duty and doing it, and it alone)? + +The remarks about the mediatorial (absolving-from-punishment) and the +pastoral (purging-from-sin) functions of a "pastor," seem to me quite +admirable. + +The end of the Letter is subsequently amplified, Letter X. + +Letter IX.--"Give us this day our daily bread." Yes, but we must work +for it. "The man that will not work, neither shall he eat." A cardinal +point with Ruskin: "But if you do" (_i.e._, wish for God's kingdom), +"you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it" ("Crown of +Wild Olive," p. 56). + +And the clergyman has to teach (Letter IX. goes on) what that work is +and how it is to be done; and the life, to which their teaching should +lead, is one "moderate in its self-indulgence, wide in its offices of +temporal ministry to the poor," in the absence of which, prayer for +harvest is mere blasphemy. For the spiritual bread is the first thing, +and a clergyman's first message, "Choose ye this day whom ye will +serve." + +Letter X.--"Forgive us our trespasses." The explanation of trespasses, +and substitution of _debts_ for it, is admirable ("Dimitte nobis +_debita_ nostra"), and admirably illustrated by the sins of omission +being condemned in Christ's judgment,--"I was hungry, and ye gave Me no +meat." + +The remarks on the "pleasantness" of the English liturgy recall those on +the avoidance of unpleasantness by the English clergy in Letter VIII. + +I pass over the notes on the advantage of "forms of prayer," and come to +the end of Letter X. and Letter XI., which go together, and say +practically, Pray honestly or not at all. "Faithful prayer implies +always correlative exertions;" "dishonest prayer is blasphemy of the +worst kind." + +"Crown of Wild Olive," p. 55, again: "Everybody in this room has been +taught to pray daily, 'Thy kingdom come.' Now, if we hear a man swear in +the streets, we think it very wrong, and say he 'takes God's name in +vain.' But there is a twenty times worse way of taking His name in vain +than that. It is to _ask God for what we don't want_. He doesn't like +that sort of prayer. If you don't want a thing, don't ask for it; such +asking is the worst mockery of your King you can insult Him with; the +soldiers striking Him on the head was nothing to that. If you do not +wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it." + +In fact, prayer is worse than useless if not sincere, and it is +insincere if not carried out in the life of the "pray-er." Thus, "One +hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of (insincere) +prayer" (Mahometan maxim, "Crown of Wild Olive," p. 49). + +I must stop. Only the fifth paragraph in Letter XI., about parents +looking for "opportunities" for their children, is exactly parallel +with "Sesame and Lilies," 8vo edition, p. 2 (Sub. 1, Sec. 2), which might +be added in an illustrative note. I must apologize for my long and +rambling letter, but if it is of the least service to you I shall be +content. I feel how inadequate it is to what I meant it to be, only I +have no time just now to do more than write, as this letter is +written--at the point of the pen. + + OXONIENSIS. + + + + + LETTERS FROM + + BRANTWOOD-ON-THE-LAKE + + TO THE + + VICARAGE OF BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS + + + + + PREFACE + + +Some apology will naturally be expected for setting the following +letters before the searching eye of a critical and possibly censorious +public. I can only plead that the suggestion of their publication did +not emanate from myself (for the idea of making these letters public +property had never once in fifteen years crossed my mind), but was made +to me by friends to whom it appeared that much in these letters is +strongly characteristic of Mr. Ruskin, and illustrates (much too +indulgently, alas!) the estimate he is good enough to form of a +correspondent who does not to this day clearly understand to what happy +circumstance he is indebted for so fortunate a partiality. At the same +time it must be confessed that _Laudari a viro laudato_ is a harmless +ambition for the possession of a stimulus which is good for every soul +of man. + +I will say no more upon that subject, lest my self-depreciation should +be set down to vanity. Nevertheless it has always been a source of +innocent pleasure to me that I have been enabled to bring my ship +without damage through so perilous a voyage to port in a safe and +honourable harbourage. + +The matters discussed in the following letters range only over a narrow +field; but it will be found that they present a truly life-like picture +of the writer with his shrewd common-sense and deeper wisdom, enlivened +in no small measure by a quick impulsiveness which is sometimes rather +startling. Some of his sudden sallies serve the purpose of the +condiments, which displeasing if taken alone, give piquancy to our +ordinary food. + + F. A. MALLESON. + + + + + 1. + + + _July 8th, 1879._ + +MY DEAR MR. MALLESON,--You must make no public announcement of any paper +by me. I am not able to count on my powers of mind for an hour; and will +absolutely take no responsibility. What I do send you--if anything--will +be in the form of a series of short letters to yourself, of which you +have already the first: This the second for the sake of continuing the +order unbroken contains the next following question which I should like +to ask. If when the sequence of letters is in your possession you like +to read any part or parts of them as a subject of discussion at your +afternoon meeting, I shall be glad and grateful. + + Ever faithfully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + 2. + + + [_Undated._] + +I am so ashamed of keeping R.'s book--but it's impossible for me to look +at it properly till I have done my lecture, so much must be left undone +of it anyhow * * * + +Yes--you were glad to find we were at one in many thoughts. So was I. +But we are not yet, you know, at one in our _sight_ of this world and +the dark ways of it. I hope to have you for a St. George's soldier one +day. + + + + + 3. + + + _23rd July, 1879._ + +Thanks for your note and your kind feelings. But you ought to know more +about me. + +I profess to be a teacher; as you profess also. + +But we teach on totally different methods. + +_You_ believe what you wish to believe; teach that it is wicked to doubt +it, and remain at rest and in much self-satisfaction. + +_I_ believe what I find to be true, whether I like or dislike it. And I +teach other people that the chief of all wickednesses is to tell lies in +God's service, and to disgrace our Master and destroy His sheep as +_involuntary_ Wolves. + +_I_, therefore, am in perpetual effort to learn and discern--in +perpetual Unrest and Dissatisfaction with myself. + +But it would simply require you to do twenty years of such hard work as +I have done before you could in any true sense speak a word to me on +such matters. You could not use a word in my sense. It would always mean +to you something different. + +For instance--one of my quite bye works in learning my business of a +teacher--was to read the New Testament through in the earliest Greek MS. +(eleventh century) which I could get hold of. I examined every syllable +of it and have more notes of various readings and on the real meanings +of perverted passages than you would get through in a year's work. But I +should require you to do the same work before I would discuss a text +with you. From that and such work in all kinds I have formed opinions +which you could no more move than you could Coniston Old Man. They may +be wrong, God knows; I _trust_ in them infinitely less than you do in +those which you have formed simply by refusing to examine--or to +think--or to know what is doing in the world about you; but you cannot +stir them. + +I very very rarely make presents of my books. If people are inclined to +learn from them, I say to them as a physician would--Pay me my fee--you +will not obey me if I give you advice for nothing. + +But I should like a kind neighbour like you to know something about me, +and I have therefore desired my publisher to send you one[21] of my many +books which, after doing the work that I have done, you would have to +read before you could really use words in my meaning. + + [21] Crown of Wild Olive.--ED. + + If you will read the introduction carefully, and especially dwell + on the 10th to 15th lines of the 15th page, you will at least know + me a little better than to think I believe in my own + resurrection--but not in Christ's: and if you look to the final + essay on War, you may find some things in it which will be of + interest to you in your own[22] work. + + [22] Translating some of Erckmann-Chatrian's.--ED. + + + + + 4. + + + VENICE, _8th September, 1879_. + +* * * * There is nothing whatever said as far as I remember in the July +'Fors,' about "people's surrendering their judgment." A colonel does not +surrender his judgment in obeying his general, nor a soldier in obeying +his colonel. But there can be no army where they _act_ on their own +judgments. + +The Society of Jesuits is a splendid proof of the power of obedience, +but its curse is falsehood. When the Master of St. George's Company bids +you lie, it will be time to compare our discipline to the Jesuits. We +are their precise opposites--fiercely and at all costs frank, while they +are calmly and for all interests lying. + + + + + 5. + + + BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, + _July 30th, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I fear I have kept the proofs too long, but I wanted +to look atain. I am confirmed in my impression that the book will do +much good.[23] But I think it would have done more if you had written +the lives of two or three of your parishioners. Such an answer would I +give to a painter who sent to me a picture of the Last Supper. "You had +better, it seems to me, have painted a Harvest Home." I am gravely +doubtful of the possibility, in these days, of writing or painting on +such subjects, advisedly and securely. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. R. + + [23] Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Ward & Lock.--ED. + + + + + 6. + + + _July 31st, 1879._ + +I have received this week the two most astonishing letters I ever yet +received in my life. And one of them is yours, read this +morning--telling me--that you don't think you could write the life of an +old woman! Yet you think you _can_ write the life of Christ! + +If you can at all explain this state of your mind to me I will tell you +more distinctly what I think of the piece I saw. But I don't think you +will communicate the thought to your publisher; and I never meant you to +use my former one in that manner. + +Mind a publisher thinks only of money, and I know nothing of +saleableness. The pause in my other letters is one of pure astonishment +at you; which at present occupies all the time I have to spare on the +subject, and has culminated to-day. + +I am so puzzled. I can scarcely think of anything else till you tell me +what you mean in the bit about being "called late." + +Have you done no work in the vineyard 'yet' then? + + + + + 7. + + + _August 2nd, 1879._ + +I am still simply speechless with astonishment at you. It is no question +of your right to the best I can say; it is all at your command. But for +the present my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. I can only tell you +with all the strength I have to read and understand and believe 2 Esdras +iv. 2, 20, 21.[24] + + [24] Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou + to comprehend the way of the most High? Then answered he me, and + said, Thou hast given a right judgment, but why judgest thou not + thyself also. For like as the ground is given unto the wood, and + the sea to his floods: even so they that dwell upon the earth may + understand nothing, but that which is upon the earth: and he only + that dwelleth above the heavens, may understand the things that are + above the height of the heavens. + + + + + 8. + + + _August 4th, 1879._ + +It is just because you undertook the task so _happily_, that I should +have thought you unfit to write the life of a Man of Sorrows, even had +he been a Man only. But your last letter, remember, claims inspiration +for your guide, and recognizes a personal call at sixty, as if the Call +to the ministry had been none, and the receiving the Holy Ghost by +imposition of hands an empty ceremony. + +In writing the life of a parishioner and in remitting or retaining their +sins you would in my conception have been fulfilling your appointed +work. But I cannot conceive the claim to be a fit Evangelist without +more proof of miraculous appointment than you are conscious of. I know +you to be conscientious, yes--but I think the judicial doom of this +country is to have conscience alike of its Priests and Prophets +_hardened_. Why should any letter of mine make you anxious if you had +indeed conscience of inspiration? + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. R. + + + + + 9. + + + _August 7th._ + +I hope to be able soon now to resume the series of letters; but it seems +to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more +respecting the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands +contain questions enough, if seriously entertained, to occupy twenty +meetings; and I could only hope that some one of them might be carefully +taken up by your friends. I think, however, in case of the clerical +feeling being too strong, that I must ask you, if you print letters at +all, to print them without omission. And if you do not print them, to +return them to me for my own expansion and arrangement. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. R. + + + + + 10. + + + _August 9th._ + +I have got to work on the letters again; it would make me nervous to +think of all these plans of yours. Suppose you leave all that till you +see what the first debate comes to?[25] And in the meantime I'll finish +as best I can. + + [25] My clerical friends and brethren must not be displeased with + me if I here mention the fact that at the meeting of twenty-three + clergy where I _proposed_ to read Mr. Ruskin's letters to them, I + was only authorized to do so by a majority of two. I can scarcely + describe the dismay and consternation with which the letters + themselves were received,--though of course not universally, in + another meeting of the same number. + + + + + 11. + + + _September 2nd._ + +That there are only a hundred copies in that form,[26] is just a reason +why the book should be in your library, where it will be enjoyed and +useful; and not in mine, where it would not be opened once in a +twelvemonth. It is one of the advantages of a small house (and it has +many) that one is compelled to consider of all one's books whether they +are in use or not. + + [26] Grosart, "Poems of Christopher Harvey." + +I yesterday ordered a 'Fors' to be sent you containing in its close the +most important piece of a religious character in the book--this I hope +you will also allow to stay on your shelves. The two that I sent with +this note contain so much that is saucy that I only send them in case +you want to look at the challenge referred to in the Letters to the +Bishop of Manchester, see October, 1877, pp. 322, 323, and January 1875, +p. 11. You can keep as long as you like, but please take care of them, +as my index is not yet done. The next letter will come before the week +end, but it's a difficult one. + + + + + 12. + + + THE VICARAGE, + BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS, + _September 4th, 1879_. + +MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--These parish engagements having been discharged +which have taken up my time very closely since I came back from +Brighton, I am returning to your letters, and I think you would like to +know what I am doing. I am copying them down, first, as I can read them +aloud better in my own handwriting, and secondly, because I shall not +place the originals in the printer's hands. + +Then many thoughts arise in my mind as I re-peruse them, and I must +needs (and I think I am allowed) give expression to my thoughts. Hence +each letter is followed by my own comments or reflections upon it. But +this need not make you feel nervous. On the whole there is much +agreement between your modes of thought on religious subjects and my +own. + +If this is thought a piece of cool assurance, I may reply in the words +or sense of Euclid, That similar triangles may have the most various +areas. I am not equal to you, but I claim to be similar. These comments +I sometimes think I ought to show to you before publication; but perhaps +you will agree with me that if I am fit to be trusted at all, I had +better be left unconstrained. I shall certainly come to you first, if I +find myself seriously at variance with you, which has not happened yet +as far as the first clause of the Lord's Prayer. Then it is likely that +I shall read the letters before two or three Clerical Societies,[27] +including my own, the Furness. + + [27] At Liverpool and Brighton. + +The opinions delivered by those clergy it will be my duty, and I hope it +will be my pleasure, to collect and to record. I propose also to invite +the clergy who have not time or opportunity to speak in the meeting to +write to me, and I will use my best judgment in selecting from their +correspondence all that seems worth preserving. + +I am very sensible that this is a most delicate and responsible task +that is laid upon me, and I wonder to find myself so engaged. It will +need tact, discretion, and kindness of heart, and I trust I may be +endued with the necessary qualifications to a much larger extent than I +think I naturally possess. + +I find no small comfort at the foot of the first page of the Preface to +"Sesame and Lilies." There I feel I am at one with you. + + Ever affectionately yours, + F. A. MALLESON. + + + + + 13. + + + BRANTWOOD, _September 5th, 1879_. + +I shall be delighted to have the comments, though it will be well first +to have the series of letters done--the last but one is coming +to-morrow. I have only written them in the sense of your sympathy in +most points, and am sure you will make the best possible use of them. + + + + + 14. + + + _September 7th, 1879._ + +It is rather comic that your first reply to my challenge concerning +usury should be a prospectus of a Company[28] wishing to make 5 per +cent. out of Broughton poor men's ignorance. You couldn't have sent me a +project I should have regarded with more abomination. + + [28] A projected Public Hall. + + + + + 15. + + + _September 9th, 1879._ + +There is absolutely no debate possible as to what usury is any more +than what adultery is. The Church has only been polluted by the +indulgence of it since the 16th century. Usury is _any kind whatever_ of +interest on loan, and it is the essential modern form of Satan. + +I send you an old book full of sound and eternal teaching on this +matter--please take care of it as a friend's gift, and one I would not +lose for its weight in gold. Please read first the Sermon by Bishop +Jewel, page 14, and then the rest at your pleasure or your leisure. + +_No halls are wanted_, they are all rich men's excuses for destroying +the home life of England. + +The public library should be at the village school (and I could put ten +thousand pounds' worth of books into a single cupboard), and all that is +done for education should be pure Gift. Do you think that this rich +England, which spends fifty millions a year in drink and gunpowder, +can't educate her poor without being paid interest for her Charity? + + * * * * * + +At the time of writing this the following letters passed between Mr. +Ruskin and myself:-- + + + + + 16. + + + THE VICARAGE, + BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS, + _September 12th, 1879_. + +MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--I feel in a great strait. I have before me a task +of the utmost delicacy, and one before which I feel that I _ought_ to +shrink,--that of editing your letters, with the accompaniment of +comments of my own. You trust me, evidently, or you would have laid down +limitations to guard yourself against misrepresentation. My anxiety is +lest I should abuse that large and generous confidence you have so +kindly placed in me. Let me explain my position, as I see it myself. + +The series will consist of eleven letters, when you have sent me your +last. I have now copied nine, and written concisely the views I have +presumed to form upon each. With every letter I mostly agree and +sympathize, looking on them as "counsels of perfection," and viewing the +great subjects you deal with from a far higher standpoint than (in my +experience) either laymen or clergymen generally view them. All that +there is in me of _enthusiasm_ rings in answering chords to the notes +you strike. Yet I do not _always_ agree. But when I do disagree, I +acknowledge it is because your standard is excessively high--too high +for practical purposes. + +Now, I ask, shall you consider it strictly fair and honourable in me to +receive your letters, read them or send them to assemblies of clergy, +gather their views, both adverse and favourable, and add diffident +animad-versions of my own? If you will allow this to be right, and if +you will trust to my sense of what is proper, to deal with your letters +in the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman, then, hoping to fulfil +your expectations, I shall proceed in my work with a mind more at ease; +for I could not endure the thought that, after all was done, I had +written a single sentence or word that had inflicted pain upon you. + +Then comes another question. Do you wish to hear or read my comments +before they are printed? I say frankly, if you trust me, I would prefer +not; for it would not, perhaps, be pleasant for me either to read your +praises, or my poor criticisms, to your face. But still, if you wish it, +I shall be ready at your bidding; for I recognize your right to require +it. Only I would rather read them to you myself some quiet autumn +evening or two. + + + + + 17. + + + _September 13th._ + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I am so very grateful for your proposal to edit the +letters without further reference to me. I think that will be exactly +the right way; and I believe I can put you at real ease in the doing of +it by explaining as I can in very few words the kind of carte-blanche I +should rejoicingly give you. + +Interrupted to-day! more to-morrow, with, I hope, the last letter. + + J. R. + + + + + 18. + + + _Sunday, September 14th._ + +I've nearly done the last letter, but will keep it to-morrow rather than +finish hurriedly for the earlier post. Your nice little note has just +come, and I can only say that you cannot please me better than by acting +with perfect freedom in all ways, and that I only want to see or reply +to what you wish me for the matter's sake. And surely there is no +occasion for any thought for waste of type about _me_ personally, except +only to express your knowledge of my real desire for the health and +power of the Church. More than this praise you _must_ not give me, for +I have learned almost everything I may say that I know by my errors. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + 19. + + + _September 16th, 1879._ + +I should have returned these two recent letters before now, but have +been looking for the earlier letters which have got mislaid in a general +rearrangement of all things by a new secretary. I am almost sure to come +on them to-morrow in my own packing up for town, where I must be for a +month hence. Please address, &c. + + + + + 20. + + + [_Undated._] + +I am sincerely grieved by the first part of your letter, and scarcely +like to trouble you with answer to the close. * * * Surely the first +thing to be done with the letters is to use them as you propose, and you +may find fifty suggestions, made by persons or circumstances after that, +worth considering. I do not doubt that I could easily add to the bulk of +MS.; but should then, I think, stipulate for having the book published +by my own publisher. + + + + + 21. + + + _October 13th._ + +I did not get your kind and interesting letter till yesterday, and can +only write in utter haste this morning to say that I think nothing can +possibly be more satisfactory (to me personally at least) and more +honourable than what you tell me of the wish of the meeting to have the +letters printed for their quiet consideration.[29] + + [29] Canon Rawnsley kindly offered to print them at his own + expense; only as many were printed as would be sufficient for three + or four clerical societies. Had I known how valuable those little + pamphlets were destined to become, I should have had many more + printed!--ED. + +They are entirely at your command and theirs--but don't sell the +copyright to any publisher. Keep it in your own hands, and after +expenses are paid of course any profits should go to the poor. Please +write during this week to me at St. George's Museum, Walkley, +Sheffield. + + + + + 22. + + + _From_ CANON FARRAR. + + _October 29th, 1879._ + +I am much obliged to you for your courtesy in sending me the letters. I +am not, however, inclined to enter into any controversy, being painfully +overwhelmed with the very duties which Mr. Ruskin seems to think that we +don't do--looking after the material and religious interests of the +sick, the suffering, the hungry, the drunken, and the extremely +wretched. + + Yours very truly, + F. W. FARRAR. + + + + + 23. + + + SHEFFIELD, _October 17th, 1879_. + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I am sincerely interested and moved by your history +of your laborious life--and shall be entirely glad to leave the +completed volume as your property, provided always you sell it to no +publisher--but take just percentage on the editions: and provided also +that an edition be issued of the letters themselves in their present +simple form of which the profits, if any, shall be for the poor of the +district.[30] It would lower your position in the whole matter if it +could be hinted that I had written the letters with any semi-purpose of +serving my friend. On the other hand you will have just and honourable +right to the profits of the completed edition which your labour and +judgment will have made possible and guided into the most serviceable +form. + + [30] This, of course, with Mr. Allen's concurrence, is my + intention.--ED. + +I am thankful to see that the letters read clearly and easily, and +contain all that it was in my mind to get said; that nothing can be +possibly more right in every way than the printing and binding--nor more +courteous and firm than your preface. + +Yes--there _will_ be a chasm to cross--a tauriformis +Aufidus[31]--greater than Rubicon, and the roar of it for many a year +has been heard in the distance, through the gathering fog on earth more +loudly. + + [31] Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus, + Qui regna Dauni praefluit Appuli + Quum saevit, horrendamque cultis + Diluviem meditatur agris. + + --HOR. _Carm._ iv. 14. + +The River of Spiritual Death in this world--and entrance to Purgatory in +the other, come down to us. + +When will the feet of the Priests be dipped in the still brim of the +water? Jordan overflows his banks already. + + * * * * * + +When you have got your large edition with its correspondence into form, +I should like to read the sheets as they are issued, and put merely +letters of reference, _a_, _b_, and _c_, to be taken up in a short +epilogue. But I don't want to do or say anything till you have all in +perfect readiness for publication. I should merely add my reference +letters in the margin, and the shortest possible notes at the end. + +Please send me ten more of these private ones for my own friends. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + 24. + + _Extract of a Letter from the late_ + + MISS SUSANNA BEEVER. + + ("The Younger Lady of the Thwaite, Coniston," to whom Mr. Ruskin + dedicated "Frondes Agrestes.") + + + _October 28th, 1879._ + +DEAR MR. MALLESON,--My sister has asked me to write and thank you for +two copies of Mr. Ruskin's Letters, which you have been so good as to +send to her. It is curious that before the post came this morning I had +been wondering whether I might ask you for a copy. * * * I have already +read these deeply interesting Letters five times. They are like the +"foam globes of leaven," I might say they have exercised my mind very +much. Things in them which at first seemed rather startling, prove on +closer examination to be full of deep truth. The suggestions in them +lead to "great searchings of heart." There is much with which I entirely +agree; much over which to ponder. What an insight into human nature is +shown in the remark that though we are so ready to call ourselves +"miserable sinners," we resent being accused of any special fault. * * * + + + + + 25. + + + _November 7th, 1879._ + +I am so glad we understand each other now and that you will carry out +your plan quietly. + +I think you should correct the present little book by my revise, and +print enough for whatever private circulation the members of the meeting +wish, but that it should not be made public till well after the large +book is out. For which I shall look with deepest interest. + + + + + 26. + + + _November 19th, 1879._ + +MY DEAR MALLESON,--I have not been able to answer a word lately, being +quite unusually busy in France--and you never remember that it takes +_me_ as long to write a chapter as you to write a book, and tries me +more to do it--so that I am sick of the feel of a pen this many a day. +I'm delighted to hear of your popularity,[32] being sure that all you +advise people to do will be kind and right. I am not surprised at the +popularity, but I wonder that you have not had some nasty envious +reviews.[33] + + [32] Meaning in the press notices of the Editor's "Life of + Christ."--ED. + + [33] Seventeen _very good_, five _good_, five _fair_, six _bad_, + two _nasty, envious_!--ED. + +I like the impudence of these Scotch brats.[34] Do they suppose it would +have been either pleasure or honour to me to come and lecture there? It +is perhaps as much their luck as mine that they changed their minds +about it. I shall be down at Brantwood soon (_D.V._). Poor Mr. Sly's[35] +death is a much more troublous thing to me than Glasgow Elections. + + [34] Glasgow University. + + [35] Of the Waterhead, Coniston. + + + + + 27. + + + _January 5th, 1880._ + +A Happy New Year to you. If I may judge or guess by the efforts made to +draw me into the business, it is likely to be a busy one for you! Will +you kindly now send me back my old book on Usury? I've got a letter +(which for his lordship's sake had better never been written) from the +Bishop of Manchester, and may want to quote a word or two of my back +letter. I send the letter with my reply this month to the +_Contemporary_. + + + + + 28. + + + _January 7th, 1880._ + +So many thanks for your kind little note and the book which I have +received quite safely; and many more thanks for taking all the enemies' +fire off me and leaving me quiet. I've been all this morning at work on +finches and buntings; but I must give the Bishop a turn to-morrow. This +weather takes my little wits out of me wofully; but I am always +affectionately yours, + + J. R. + + + + + 29. + + + _May 10th, 1880._ + +MY DEAR MALLESON,--Yes, the omission of the 'Mr.' meant much change in +all my feelings towards you and estimates of you--for which change, +believe me, I am more glad and thankful than I can well tell you. Not +but that of course I always felt your essential goodness and rightness +of mind, but I did not at all understand the scope of them. + +And you will have the reward of the Visitation of the Sick, though every +day I am more sure of the mistake made by good people universally--in +trying to pull fallen people up--instead of keeping yet safe ones from +tumbling after them, and always spending their pains on the worst +instead of the best material. If they want to be able to save the lost +like Christ, let them first be sure they can say with Him, "Of those +Thou gavest Me I have lost none." + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + +The 'Epilogue's' an awful bother to me in this May time! I have not done +a word yet, but you shall have it before the week is out. + + + + + 30. + + + _April 17._ + +The letters seem all very nice--I shall have very little to +say about them, except to explain what you observe and have been +misunderstood.... Of course my notes shall be sent to you and added to +when you see need. But I cannot do it quickly. + + + + + 31. + + + _April 14, 1880._ + +Thanks for nice new proofs. I haven't found any false references, but I +didn't look. I'll have all verified by my secretary. I'm busy with an +article on modern novels and don't feel a bit pious just now; so the +responses have hung fire. + + + + + 32. + + + _May 9._ + +You are really very good about this, and shall have the notes (_D.V._) +within a fortnight. The Scott could not be put off, being promised for +June 19, _Nineteenth Century_, and I could not do novels and sermons +together. I don't think the notes will be long. The letters seem to be +mostly compliments or small objections not worth noticing. + + + + + 33. + + + _May 14th, 1880._ + +I've just done--yesterday with Scott, and took up the letters for the +first time this morning seriously. + +I had never seen _yours_ at all when I wrote last. I fell first on Mr. +----, whom I read with some attention, and commented on with little +favour; went on to the next, and remained content with that taste till I +had done my Scott. + +I have this morning been reading your own, on which I very earnestly +congratulate you. God knows it isn't because they are friendly or +complimentary, but because you _do_ see what I mean, and people hardly +ever do--and I think it needs very considerable power and feeling to +forgive and understand as you do. You have said everything _I_ want to +say, and much more--except on the one point of excommunication, which +will be the chief, almost the only subject of my final note. + +I write in haste to excuse myself for my former note. + + Ever affectionately + and gratefully yours, + J. RUSKIN. + +(NOTE.--A legal friend remarks that in his opinion I should refrain from +printing _extracts_ from letters, and always print the whole; or, +indeed, in the present case, the whole series of letters, lest it should +be suspected that I am making a self-indulgent selection only of the +good words which Mr. Ruskin is kind enough to use in his communications +with me. Let me here say, however, that had there been in all these +letters any which conveyed censure, stricture, or blame of any kind, I +should not have withheld my hand from including them. But no such +letters ever came to me. Mr. Ruskin is the very pink of courtesy with +his friends, and he _may_ have suppressed remarks which he thought might +wound me. But I am reproducing here not my friend's secret thoughts, but +only those of his letters which remain in my possession.--EDITOR.) + + + + + 34. + + + _May 26th, 1880._ + +I'm at work on the 'Epilogue,' but it takes more trouble than I +expected. I see there's a letter from you which I leave unopened, for +fear there should be anything in it to put me in a bad temper, which you +might easily do without meaning it. You shall have the 'Epilogue' as +soon as I can get it done; but you won't much like it, for there are +bits in the Clergymen's letters that have put my bristles up. They ought +either to have said nothing about me, or known more. + +I should give that rascally Bishop a dressing "au serieux," only you +wouldn't like to godfather it, so I'll keep it for somewhere else.[36] + + [36] Needless to say that in this energetic language, the Master of + the Company of St. George is referring to nothing whatever in the + stainless character of the great Bishop, of whom it is justly + recorded in the inscription on his monument in Manchester Cathedral + that "he won all hearts by opening to them his own;" except only in + the matter of house-rent and interest of money, opinions which the + Bishop shared with the great mass of civilized humanity. + + + + + + 35. + + + _June 7th, 1880._ + +Your letter is a relief to my mind, and shall not be taken advantage of +for more delay. The wet day or two would get all done: but I simply +can't think of anything but the sun while it shines. + +And I've had second, third, and seventh thoughts about several things: +as it is coming out I believe it will be a useful contribution to the +book. + +I shall get it in the copyist's hand on Monday, and as it's one of my +girl secretaries, I shall be teased till it's done, so it's safe for the +end of the week (_D.V._). I am sadly afraid she'll make me cut out some +of the spiciest bits: the girl secretaries are always allowed to put +their pens through anything they choose. Please drop the 'Mr.'; it is a +matter of friendship, not as if there were any of different powers. God +only knows of higher and lower, and, as far as I can judge, is likely to +put ministry to the sick much above public letters. + +Thanks for note of Menyanthes Trifoliata. + +I haven't seen it, scarcely moving at present beyond my wood or garden. + + + + + 36. + + + _June 13th, 1880._ + +You are really very good to put up with all that vicious Epilogue. But +it won't discredit _you_ in the end, whatever it may do me. I hope much +otherwise. + +I will send you to-morrow the Lincoln, or, possibly, York MS. to look +at. You will find the Litany following the Quicunque vult, and on the +leaf marked by me 83, at the top the passage I began quotation with. It +will need a note; for _domptnum_ is, I believe, strong Yorkshire Latin +for Donum Apostolicum, not Dominum. + +The _e_ in Ecclesie for _ae_ is the proper form in medieval Latin. + +The calendar and Litany are invaluable in their splendid lists of +English saints, and the entire book unreplaceable, so mind you lock it +up carefully! + + + + + 37. + + +There's a good deal of interest in the enclosed layman's letter, I +think. Would you like to print any bits of it? I cannot quite make up my +mind if it's worth or not. + + + + + 38. + + + _June 27th, 1880._ + +The 'Epilogue' is all but done to-day, and shall be sent by railway +guard to-morrow (_D.V._), with a book which will further interest you +and your good secretary. It is as fine an example of the coloured print +Prayer-Book as I have seen, date 1507, and full of examples of the way +Romanism had ruined itself at that date. But it may contain in legible +form some things of interest. I never could make out so much as its +Calendar; but the songs about the saints and rhymed hours are very +pretty. Though the illuminations are all ridiculous and one or two +frightful, most are more or less pretty, and nearly all interesting. You +can keep it any time, but you must promise me not to show it to anybody +who does not know how to handle a book. * * * + +(NOTE.--I may mention here, once for all, that wherever there are +omissions left in Mr. Ruskin's letters, there is nothing of interest or +importance in those passages for any one but for the receiver of that +letter.) + + + + + 39. + + + _July 15th, 1880._ + +* * * It is a further light to me, on your curious differences from most +clergymen, very wonderful and venerable to me, that you should +understand Byron! + + + + + 40. + + + _June 25th._ + +DEAR MALLESON,--No, I don't want the letter printed in the least; but +it ought to have interested you very differently. It is by a much older +man than I, who has never heard of our letters, but has been a very +useful and influential person in his own parish, and is a practical and +acceptable contributor to sporting papers. He is an able lawyer also, +and knows far better than I do and far better than most clergymen know, +what could really be done in their country parishes if they had a mind. + +The bit of manuscript is perfectly fac-similed by your niece, but I +can't read it: and it will be much better that you mark the places you +wish certification about, and that I then send the book up to the +British Museum, and have the whole made clear. The _dompt_ is a very +important matter indeed. + +I have got the last bit of epilogue fairly on foot this morning, and +can promise it on Monday all well. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. R. + + + + + 41. + + + _April 30th, 1881._ + +DEAR MALLESON,--It will be many a day before I recover yet--if ever--but +with caution I hope not to go wild again, and to get what power belongs +to my age slowly back. When were you in the same sort of danger? Let me +very strongly warn you from the whirlpool edge--the going down in the +middle is gloomier than I can tell you. + +But I shall thankfully see you and your friend here. Visiting is out of +the question for me. I can bear no fatigue nor excitement away from my +home. I pay visits no more--anywhere (even in old times few). It is +always a great gladness to me when young students care about old +books--and I remember as a duty the feeling I used to have in getting a +Missal, even after I was past a good many other pleasures. You made such +good use of that book too, that I am happy in yielding to any wish of +yours about it, so your young friend[37] shall have it if he likes. The +marked price is quite a fair market one for it, though you might look +and wait long before such a book came _into_ the market. The British +Museum people were hastily and superciliously wrong in calling it a +common book. It is not a _showy_ one; but there are few more interesting +or more perfect service books in English manuscript, and the Museum +people buy cart-loads of big folios that are not worth the shelf room. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + [37] Rev. J. R. Haslam, now Vicar of Thwaites, Cumberland. See + Appendix.--ED. + + + + + 42. + + + _April 23rd, 1881._ + +MY DEAR MALLESON,--These passages of description and illustration of the +general aspect of Ephesus in St. Paul's time seem to me much more +forcibly and artistically written than anything you did in the "Life of +Christ"; and I could not suggest any changes to you which you could now +carry out under the conditions of time to revise, except a more clear +statement of the Ephesian goddess. + +[I really do not think Mr. Ruskin would wish that _all_ he wrote in the +next sentence about the Ephesian Diana should be placed before the +public eye. But I resume in the middle of a sentence.] + +... practically at last and chiefly of the Diabolic Suction of the +Usurer; and her temple, which you luckily liken to the Bank of England, +was in fact what that establishment would be as the recognised place of +pious pilgrimage for all Jews, infidels, or prostitutes in the realm of +England. You could not conceive the real facts of these degraded +worships of the mixed Greek and Asiatic races, unless you gave a good +year's work to the study of the decline of Greek art in the 3rd and 4th +centuries B.C. + +Charles Newton's pride in discovering Mausolus, and engineers' whistling +over his Asiatic mummy, have entirely corrupted and thwarted the uses +of the British Museum Art Galleries. The Drum of that Diana Temple is +barbarous rubbish, not worth tenpence a ton; and if I shewed you a +photograph of the head of Mausolus without telling you what it was, I +will undertake that you saw with candid eyes in it nothing more than the +shaggy poll of a common gladiator. But your book will swim with the +tide. It is best so. + + + + + 43. + + + _July...._ + +I'm not in the least anxious about my MS., and shall only be glad if you +like to keep it long enough to read thoroughly. There must surely be +published copies of such extant, though, and worth enquiring after? + +Partly the fine weather, partly the heat, partly a fit of Scott and +Byron have stopped the Epilogue utterly for the time! You cannot be in +any hurry for it surely? There's plenty to go on printing with. + +I don't think you will find the n's and m's much bother; the +contractions are the great nuisance. But I do think this development of +Gothic writing one of the oddest absurdities of mankind. + +The illumination of "the fool hath said in his heart," snapping his +fingers, or more accurately making the indecent sign called "the fig" by +the Italians, is a very unusual one in this MS., and peculiarly English. + + + + + 44. + + +There is not the least use in my looking over these sheets: you +probably know more about Athens than I do, and what I do know is out of +and in Smith's Dictionary, where you can find it without trouble. + +For the rest you must please always remember what I told you once for +all, that you could never interest _me_ by writing about people, either +at Athens or Ephesus, but only of those of the parish of +Broughton-in-Furness. + +That new translation could not come out well; that much I know without +looking at it. One must believe the Bible before one understands it, (I +mean, believe that it is understandable) and one must understand before +one can translate it. Two stages in advance of your Twenty-Four +Co-operative Tyndales! + + + + + 45. + + + _26th May._ + +DEAR MALLESON,--I should be delighted to see Canon Weston and you any +day: but I want J---- to be at home, and she is going to town next week +for a month, and will be fussy till she goes. She promises to be back +faithfully within the week after that--within the Sunday, I mean. Fix +any day or any choice of days if one is wet after the said Sunday, and +we shall both be in comfort ready. + +If Canon Weston or you are going away anywhere, come any day before that +suits you. + +In divinity matters I am obliged to stop--for my sins, I suppose. But it +seems I am almost struck mad when I think earnestly about them, and I'm +only reading now natural history or nature. + +Never mind Autograph people, they are never worth the scratch of a pen. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. R. + + + + + 46. + + + _August 26th, 1881._ + +I'm in furious bad humour with the weather, and cannot receive just now +at all, having had infinitely too much of indoors, and yet unable to +draw for darkness, or write for temper. But I will see Mr. ---- if he +has any other reason than curiosity for wishing to see me--what does he +want with me? + + + + + 47. + + + _21st October._ + +I am fairly well, but have twenty times the work in hand that I am able +for; and read--Virgil, Plato, and Hesoid, when I have time! But +assuredly no modern books; least of all my friends', lest I should have +either to flatter or offend. Still less will I have to say to young men +proposing to become clergymen. I have distinctly told them their +business is at present--to dig, not preach. + +Let your young friend read his Fors. All that he needs of me is in that. + + + + + 48. + + + ANNECY, SAVOY, + _November 15th, 1882._ + +I have got your kind little note of the 11th yesterday, and am entirely +glad to hear of your papers on the Duddon. I shall be very happy indeed +if you find any pleasure in remembering our walk to the tarn.[38] I hope +I know now better how to manage myself in all ways, and we may still +have some pleasant talks, my health not failing me. + + [38] Goat's Water, under the Old Man of Coniston. + + + + + 49. + + + TALLOIRE, SWITZERLAND, + _November 20th, 1882._ + +MY DEAR MALLESON,--I am sincerely grieved that you begin to feel the +effect of overwork; but as this is the first warning you have had, and +as you are wise enough to obey it, I trust that the three months' rest +will restore you all your usual powers on the conditions of using them +with discretion, and not rising to write at two in the morning. + +I am very thankful to find in my own case that a quiet spring of energy +filters back into the old well-heads--if one does not bucket it out as +fast as it comes in. + +But my last illnesses seriously impaired my walking powers, and I'm +afraid if you came to Switzerland I should be very jealous of you. + +Certainly it is not in this season a country for an invalid, and I +believe you cannot be safer than by English firesides with no books to +work at nor parishioners to visit. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + 50. + + + _January 22nd, 1883._ + +DEAR MALLESON,--I am heartily glad to hear that you are better, and that +you are going to lead the Vicar of Wakefield's quiet life. I am not +stronger myself, but think it right to keep hold of the Oxford Helm, as +long as they care to trust it to me. + +I've entirely given up reviewing, but if the Editor of the +_Contemporary_ would send me Mr. Peek's Article, when set up, I might +perhaps send a note or two on it, which the real reviewer might use or +not at his pleasure. In the meantime it would greatly oblige me if the +Editor could give me the reference to an old article of mine on Herbert +Spencer, (or at least on a saying of his), which I cannot find where I +thought it was in the _Nineteenth Century_, and suppose therefore to +have been in the _Contemporary_ before the _Nineteenth Century_ Athena +arose out of its cleft head. + +The Article had a lot about Coniston in it, but I quite forget what else +it was about. I think it must have been just before the separation. +Kindest regards and congratulations on your convalescence from all here. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + 51. + + + BRANTWOOD, _February 6th, 1883_. + +MY DEAR MALLESON,--I'm nearly beside myself with a sudden rush of work +on my return from abroad, and resumption of Oxford duties, and I simply +_cannot_ yet think over the business of the letters, the rather that _I_ +certainly never would re-publish most of those clergymen's letters at +all. + +My own were a gift to you, and I am quite ready to print _them_ if you +like, and let you have half profits, the St. George's Guild having the +other. But that could not be for some time yet. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + EPILOGUE BY MR. RUSKIN + + + BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _June 1880_. + +MY DEAR MALLESON,--I have glanced at the proofs you send; and _can_ do +no more than glance, even if it seemed to me desirable that I should do +more,--which, after said glance, it does in no wise. Let me remind you +of what it is absolutely necessary that the readers of the book should +clearly understand--that I wrote these Letters at your request, to be +read and discussed at the meeting of a private society of clergymen. I +declined then to be present at the discussion, and I decline still. You +afterwards asked leave to print the Letters, to which I replied that +they were yours, for whatever use you saw good to make of them: +afterwards your plans expanded, while my own notion remained precisely +what it had been--that the discussion should have been private, and kept +within the limits of the society, and that its conclusions, if any, +should have been announced in a few pages of clear print, for the +parishioners' exclusive reading. + +I am, of course, flattered by the wider course you have obtained for the +Letters, but am not in the slightest degree interested by the debate +upon them, nor by any religious debates whatever, undertaken without +serious conviction that there is a jot wrong in matters as they are, or +serious resolution to make them a tittle better. Which, so far as I can +read the minds of your correspondents, appears to me the substantial +state of them. + +One thing I cannot pass without protest--the quantity of talk about the +writer of the Letters. What I am, or am not, is of no moment whatever to +the matters in hand. I observe with comfort, or at least with +complacency, that on the strength of a couple of hours' talk, at a time +when I was thinking chiefly of the weatherings of slate you were good +enough to show me above Goat's Water, you would have ventured to baptize +me in the little lake--as not a goat, but a sheep. The best I can be +sure of, myself, is that I am no wolf, and have never aspired to the +dignity even of a Dog of the Lord. + +You told me, if I remember rightly, that one of the members of the +original meeting denounced me as an arch-heretic[39]--meaning, +doubtless, an arch-pagan; for a heretic, or sect-maker, is of all terms +of reproach the last that can be used of me. And I think he should have +been answered that it was precisely as an arch-pagan that I ventured to +request a more intelligible and more unanimous account of the Christian +Gospel from its preachers. + + [39] Only a heretic!--ED. + +If anything in the Letters offended those of you who hold me a brother, +surely it had been best to tell me between ourselves, or to tell it to +the Church, or to let me be Anathema Maranatha in peace,--in any case, I +must at present so abide, correcting only the mistakes about myself +which have led to graver ones about the things I wanted to speak of.[40] + + [40] I may perhaps be pardoned for vindicating at least my + arithmetic, which, with Bishop Colenso, I rather pride myself upon. + One of your correspondents greatly doubts my having heard five + thousand assertors of evangelical principles (Catholic-absolvent or + Protestant-detergent are virtually the same). I am now sixty years + old, and for forty-five of them was in church at least once on the + Sunday,--say once a month also in afternoons,--and you have above + three thousand church services. When I am abroad I am often in + half-a-dozen churches in the course of a single day, and never lose + a chance of listening to anything that is going on. Add the + conversations pursued, not unearnestly, with every sort of reverend + person I can get to talk to me--from the Bishop of Strasburg (as + good a specimen of a town bishop as I have known), with whom I was + studying ecstatic paintings in the year 1850--down to the simplest + travelling tinker inclined Gospelwards, whom I perceive to be + sincere, and your correspondent will perceive that my rapid + numerical expression must be far beneath the truth. He subjoins his + more rational doubt of my acquaintance with many town missionaries; + to which I can only answer, that as I do not live in town, nor set + up for a missionary myself, my spiritual advantages have certainly + not been great in that direction. I simply assert that of the few I + have known,--beginning with Mr. Spurgeon, under whom I sat with + much edification for a year or two,--I have not known any such + teaching as I speak of. + +The most singular one, perhaps, in all the Letters is that of Mr. ----, +that I do not attach enough weight to antiquity. My reply to it is +partly written already, with reference to the wishes of some other of +your correspondents to know more of my reasons for finding fault with +the English Liturgy. + +If people are taught to use the Liturgy rightly and reverently, it will +bring them all good; and for some thirty years of my life I used to read +it always through to my servant and myself, if we had no Protestant +church to go to, in Alpine or Italian villages. One can always tacitly +pray of it what one wants, and let the rest pass. But, as I have grown +older, and watched the decline in the Christian faith of all nations, I +have got more and more suspicious of the effect of this particular form +of words on the truthfulness of the English mind (now fast becoming a +salt which has lost his savour, and is fit only to be trodden under +foot of men). And during the last ten years, in which my position at +Oxford has compelled me to examine what authority there was for the code +of prayer, of which the University is now so ashamed that it no more +dares compel its youths so much as to hear, much less to utter it, I got +necessarily into the habit of always looking to the original forms of +the prayers of the fully developed Christian Church. Nor did I think it +a mere chance which placed in my own possession a manuscript of the +perfect Church service of the thirteenth century,[41] written by the +monks of the Sainte Chapelle for St. Louis; together with one of the +same date, written in England, probably for the Diocese of Lincoln; +adding some of the Collects, in which it corresponds with St. Louis's, +and the Latin hymns so much beloved by Dante, with the appointed music +for them. + + [41] See Appendix. + +And my wonder has been greater every hour, since I examined closely the +text of these and other early books, that in any state of declining, or +captive, energy, the Church of England should have contented itself with +a service which cast out, from beginning to end, all these intensely +spiritual and passionate utterances of chanted prayer (the whole body, +that is to say, of the authentic _Christian_ Psalms), and in adopting +what it timidly preserved of the Collects, mangled or blunted them down +to the exact degree which would make them either unintelligible or +inoffensive--so vague that everybody might use them, or so pointless +that nobody could be offended by them. For a special instance: The +prayer for "our bishops and curates, and all congregations committed to +their charge," is, in the Lincoln Service-book, "for our bishop, and all +congregations committed to _his_ charge." The change from singular to +plural seems a slight one. But it suffices to take the eyes of the +people off their own bishop into infinite space; to change a prayer +which was intended to be uttered in personal anxiety and affection, into +one for the general good of the Church, of which nobody could judge, and +for which nobody would particularly care; and, finally, to change a +prayer to which the answer, if given, would be visible, into one of +which nobody could tell whether it were answered or not. + +In the Collects, the change, though verbally slight, is thus tremendous +in issue. But in the Litany--word and thought go all wild together. The +first prayer of the Litany in the Lincoln Service-book is for the Pope +and all ranks beneath him, implying a very noteworthy piece of +theology--that the Pope might err in religious matters, and that the +prayer of the humblest servant of God would be useful to him:--"Ut +Dompnum Apostolicum, et omnes gradus ecclesie in sancta religione +conservare digneris." Meaning that whatever errors particular persons +might, and must, fall into, they prayed God to keep the Pope right, and +the collective testimony and conduct of the ranks below him. Then +follows the prayer for their own bishop and _his_ flock--then for the +king and the princes (chief lords), that they (not all nations) might be +kept in concord--and then for _our_ bishops and abbots,--the Church of +England proper; every one of these petitions being direct, limited, and +personally heartfelt;--and then this lovely one for themselves:-- + +"Ut obsequium servitutis nostre rationabile facias."--"That thou wouldst +make the obedience of our service reasonable" ("which is your reasonable +service").[42] + + [42] See in the Appendix for more of these beautiful prayers.--ED. + +This glorious prayer is, I believe, accurately an "early English" one. +It is not in the St. Louis Litany, nor in a later elaborate French +fourteenth century one; but I find it softened in an Italian MS. of the +fifteenth century into "ut nosmet ipsos in tuo sancto servitio +confortare et conservare digneris,"--"that thou wouldst deign to keep +and comfort us ourselves in thy sacred service" (the comfort, observe, +being here asked for whether reasonable or not!); and in the best and +fullest French service-book I have, printed at Rouen in 1520, it +becomes, "ut congregationes omnium sanctorum in tuo sancto servitio +conservare digneris;" while victory as well as concord is asked for the +king and the princes,--thus leading the way to that for our own Queen's +victory over all her enemies, a prayer which might now be advisedly +altered into one that she--and in her, the monarchy of England--might +find more fidelity in their friends. + +I give one more example of the corruption of our Prayer-Book, with +reference to the objections taken by some of your correspondents to the +distinction implied in my Letters between the Persons of the Father and +the Christ. + +The "Memoria de Sancta Trinitate," in the St. Louis service-book, runs +thus: + +"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione +vere fidei eterne Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia +majestatis adorare unitatem, quesumus ut ejus fidei firmitate ab omnibus +semper muniemur adversis. Qui vivis et regnas Deus, per omnia secula +seculorum. Amen." + +"Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given to Thy servants, in +confession of true faith to recognize the glory of the Eternal Trinity, +and in the power of Majesty to pray to the Unity; we ask that by the +firmness of that faith we may be always defended from all adverse +things, who livest and reignest God through all ages. Amen." + +Turning to our Collect, we find we have first slipped in the word "us" +before "Thy servants," and by that little insertion have slipped in the +squire and his jockey, and the public-house landlord--and any one else +who may chance to have been coaxed, swept, or threatened into church on +Trinity Sunday, and required the entire company of them to profess +themselves servants of God, and believers in the mystery of the Trinity. +And we think we have done God a service! + +"Grace." Not a word about grace in the original. You don't believe by +having grace, but by having wit. + +"To acknowledge." "Agnosco" is to recognize, not to acknowledge. To +_see_ that there are three lights in a chandelier is a great deal more +than to acknowledge that they are there. + +"To worship." "Adorare" is to pray to, not to worship. You may worship a +mere magistrate; but you _pray_ to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. + +The last sentence in the English is too horribly mutilated to be dealt +with in any patience. The meaning of the great old collect is that by +the shield of that faith we may quench all the fiery darts of the devil. +The English prayer means, if it means anything, "Please keep us in our +faith without our taking any trouble; and, besides, please don't let us +lose our money, nor catch cold." + +"Who livest and reignest." Right; but how many of any extant or instant +congregations understand what the two words mean? That God is a living +God, not a dead Law; and that He is a reigning God, putting wrong things +to rights, and that, sooner or later, with a strong hand and a rod of +iron; and not at all with a soft sponge and warm water, washing +everybody as clean as a baby every Sunday morning, whatever dirty work +they may have been about all the week. + +On which latter supposition your modern Liturgy, in so far as it has +supplemented instead of corrected the old one, has entirely modelled +itself,--producing in its first address to the congregation before the +Almighty precisely the faultfullest and foolishest piece of English +language that I know in the whole compass of English or American +literature. In the seventeen lines of it (as printed in my +old-fashioned, large-print prayer-book), there are seven times over two +words for one idea. + + 1. Acknowledge and confess. + 2. Sins and wickedness. + 3. Dissemble nor cloke. + 4. Goodness and mercy. + 5. Assemble and meet. + 6. Requisite and necessary. + 7. Pray and beseech. + +There is, indeed, a shade of difference in some of these ideas for a +good scholar, none for a general congregation;[43] and what difference +they can guess at merely muddles their heads: to acknowledge sin is +indeed different from confessing it, but it cannot be done at a minute's +notice; and goodness is a different thing from mercy, but it is by no +means God's infinite goodness that forgives our badness, but that judges +it. + + [43] The only explanation ever offered for this exuberant wordiness + is that if worshippers did not understand one term they would the + other, and in some cases, in the Exhortation and elsewhere, one + word is of Latin and the other of Saxon derivation.[44] But this is + surely a very feeble excuse for bad composition. Of a very + different kind is that beautiful climax which is reached in the + three admirably chosen pairs of words in the Prayer for the + Parliament, "peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and + piety."--EDITOR. + + [44] The repetition of synonymous terms is of very frequent + occurrence in sixteenth century writing, as "for ever and aye," + "Time and the hour ran through the roughest day" (Macbeth, i. 3). + +"The faultfullest," I said, "and the foolishest." After using fourteen +words where seven would have done, what is it that the whole speech +gets said with its much speaking? This Morning Service of all England +begins with the assertion that the Scripture moveth us in sundry places +to confess our sins before God. _Does_ it so? Have your congregations +ever been referred to those sundry places? Or do they take the assertion +on trust, or remain under the impression that, unless with the advantage +of their own candour, God must remain ill-informed on the subject of +their sins? + +"That we should not dissemble nor cloke them." _Can_ we then? Are these +grown-up congregations of the enlightened English Church in the +nineteenth century still so young in their nurseries that the "Thou, +God, seest me" is still not believed by them if they get under the bed? + +Let us look up the sundry moving passages referred to. + +(I suppose myself a simple lamb of the flock, and only able to use my +English Bible.) + +I find in my concordance (confess and confession together) forty-two +occurrences of the word. Sixteen of these, including John's confession +that he was not the Christ, and the confession of the faithful fathers +that they were pilgrims on the earth, do indeed move us strongly to +confess Christ before men. Have you ever taught your congregations what +that confession means? They are ready enough to confess Him in church, +that is to say, in their own private synagogue. Will they in Parliament? +Will they in a ball-room? Will they in a shop? Sixteen of the texts are +to enforce their doing _that_. + +The next most important one (1 Tim. vi. 13) refers to Christ's own good +confession, which I suppose was not of His sins, but of His obedience. +How many of your congregations can make any such kind of confession, or +wish to make it? + +The eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth (1 Kings viii. 33, 2 Chron. +vi. 26, Heb. xiii. 15) speak of confessing thankfully that God is God +(and not a putrid plasma nor a theory of development), and the +twenty-first (Job xl. 14) speaks of God's own confession, that no doubt +we are the people, and that wisdom shall die with us, and on what +conditions He will make it. + +There remain twenty-one texts which do speak of the confession of our +sins--very moving ones indeed--and Heaven grant that some day the +British public may be moved by them. + +1. The first is Lev. v. 5, "He shall confess that he hath sinned _in +that thing_." And if you can get any soul of your congregation to say he +has sinned in _any_thing, he may do it in two words for one if he likes, +and it will yet be good liturgy. + +2. The second is indeed general--Lev. xvi. 21: the command that the +whole nation should afflict its soul on the great day of atonement once +a year. The Church of England, I believe, enjoins no such unpleasant +ceremony. Her festivals are passed by her people often indeed in the +extinction of their souls, but by no means in their intentional +affliction. + +3. The third, fourth, and fifth (Lev. xxvi. 40, Numb. v. 7, Nehem. i. 6) +refer all to national humiliation for definite idolatry, accompanied +with an entire abandonment of that idolatry, and of idolatrous persons. +How soon _that_ form of confession is likely to find a place in the +English congregations the defences of their main idol, mammon, in the +vilest and cruellest shape of it--usury--with which this book has been +defiled, show very sufficiently. + +6. The sixth is Psalm xxxii. 5--virtually the whole of that psalm, which +does, indeed, entirely refer to the greater confession, once for all +opening the heart to God, which can be by no means done fifty-two times +a year, and which, once done, puts men into a state in which they will +never again say there is no health in them; nor that their hearts are +desperately wicked; but will obey for ever the instantly following +order, "Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye +that are true of heart." + +7. The seventh is the one confession in which I can myself +share:--"After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the Lord +God of my fathers." + +8. The eighth, James v. 16, tells us to confess our faults--not to God, +but "one to another"--a practice not favoured by English +catechumens--(by the way, what _do_ you all mean by "auricular" +confession--confession that can be heard? and is the Protestant +pleasanter form one that can't be?) + +9. The ninth is that passage of St. John (i. 9), the favourite +evangelical text, which is read and preached by thousands of false +preachers every day, without once going on to read its great companion, +"Beloved, if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and +knoweth all things; but if our heart condemn us _not_, then have we +confidence toward God." Make your people understand the second text, and +they will understand the first. At present you leave them understanding +neither. + +And the entire body of the remaining texts is summed in Joshua vii. 19 +and Ezra x. 11, in which, whether it be Achan, with his Babylonish +garment, or the people of Israel, with their Babylonish lusts, the +meaning of confession is simply what it is to every brave boy, girl, +man, and woman, who knows the meaning of the word "honour" before God or +man--namely, to say what they have done wrong, and to take the +punishment of it (not to get it blanched over by any means), and to do +it no more--which is so far from being a tone of mind generally enforced +either by the English, or any other extant Liturgy, that, though all my +maids are exceedingly pious, and insist on the privilege of going to +church as a quite inviolable one, I think it a scarcely to be hoped for +crown and consummation of virtue in them that they should tell me when +they have broken a plate; and I should expect to be met only with looks +of indignation and astonishment if I ventured to ask one of them how she +had spent her Sunday afternoon. + +"Without courage," said Sir Walter Scott, "there is no truth; and +without truth there is no virtue." The sentence would have been itself +more true if Sir Walter had written "candour" for "truth," for it is +possible to be true in insolence, or true in cruelty. But in looking +back from the ridges of the Hill Difficulty in my own past life, and in +all the vision that has been given me of the wanderings in the ways of +others--this, of all principles, has become to me surest--that the first +virtue to be required of man is frankness of heart and lip: and I +believe that every youth of sense and honour, putting himself to +faithful question, would feel that he had the devil for confessor, if he +had not his father or his friend. + +That a clergyman should ever be so truly the friend of his parishioners +as to deserve their confidence from childhood upwards, may be flouted as +a sentimental ideal; but he is assuredly only their enemy in showing his +Lutheran detestation of the sale of indulgences by broadcasting these +gratis from his pulpit. + +The inconvenience and unpleasantness of a catechism concerning itself +with the personal practice as well as the general theory of duty, are +indeed perfectly conceivable by me; yet I am not convinced that such +manner of catechism would therefore be less medicinal; and during the +past ten years it has often been matter of amazed thought with me, while +our President at Corpus read prayers to the chapel benches, what might +by this time have been the effect on the learning as well as the creed +of the University, if, forty years ago, our stern old Dean Gaisford, of +the House of Christ, instead of sending us to chapel as to the house of +correction, when we missed a lecture, had inquired, before he allowed us +to come to chapel at all, whether we were gamblers, harlot-mongers, or +in concealed and selfish debt. + +I observe with extreme surprise in the preceding letters the +unconsciousness of some of your correspondents, that there ever was such +a thing as discipline in the Christian Church. Indeed, the last +wholesome instance of it I can remember was when my own great-great +uncle Maitland lifted Lady ---- from his altar rails, and led her back +to her seat before the congregation, when she offered to take the +Sacrament, being at enmity with her son.[45] But I believe a few hours +honestly spent by any clergyman on his Church history would show him +that the Church's confidence in her prayer has been always exactly +proportionate to the strictness of her discipline; that her present +fright at being caught praying by a chemist or an electrician, results +mainly from her having allowed her twos and threes gathered in the name +of Christ to become sixes and sevens gathered in the name of Belial; +and that therefore her now needfullest duty is to explain to her +stammering votaries, extremely doubtful as they are of the effect of +their supplications either on politics or the weather, that although +Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, he had them better +under command; and that while the effectual fervent prayer of a +righteous man availeth much, the formal and lukewarm one of an +iniquitous man availeth--much the other way. + + [45] In some of the country districts of Scotland the right of the + Church to interfere with the lives of private individuals is still + exercised. Only two years ago, a wealthy gentleman farmer was + rebuked by the "Kirk Session" of the Dissenting Church to which he + belonged, for infidelity to his wife. + + At the Scottish half-yearly Communion the ceremony of "fencing the + tables" used to be observed; that is, turning away all those whose + lives were supposed to have made them unfit to receive the + Sacrament. + +Such an instruction, coupled with due explanation of the nature of +righteousness and iniquity, directed mainly to those who have the power +of both in their own hands, being makers of law, and holders of +property, would, without any further debate, bring about a very singular +change in the position and respectability of English clergymen. + +How far they may at present be considered as merely the Squire's left +hand, bound to know nothing of what he is doing with his right, it is +for their own consciences to determine. + +For instance, a friend wrote to me the other day, "Will you not come +here? You will see a noble duke destroying a village as old as the +Conquest, and driving out dozens of families whose names are in Domesday +Book, because, owing to the neglect of his ancestors and rackrenting for +a hundred years, the place has fallen out of repair, and the people are +poor, and may become paupers. A local paper ventured to tell the truth. +The duke's agent called on the editor, and threatened him with +destruction if he did not hold his tongue." The noble duke, doubtless, +has proper Protestant horror of auricular confession. But suppose, +instead of the local editor, the local parson had ventured to tell the +truth from his pulpit, and even to intimate to his Grace that he might +no longer receive the Body and Blood of the Lord at the altar of that +parish. The parson would scarcely--in these days--have been therefore +made bonfire of, and had a pretty martyr's memorial by Mr. Scott's +pupils; but he would have lighted a goodly light, nevertheless, in this +England of ours, whose pettifogging piety has now neither the courage to +deny a duke's grace in its church, nor to declare Christ's in its +Parliament. + +Lastly. Several of your contributors, I observe, have rashly dipped +their feet in the brim of the water of that raging question of Usury; +and I cannot but express my extreme regret that you should yourself have +yielded to the temptation of expressing opinions which you have had no +leisure either to found or to test. My assertion, however, that the rich +lived mainly by robbing the poor, referred not to Usury, but to Rent; +and the facts respecting both these methods of extortion are perfectly +and indubitably ascertainable by any person who himself wishes to +ascertain them, and is able to take the necessary time and pains. I see +no sign, throughout the whole of these letters, of any wish whatever, on +the part of one of their writers, to ascertain the facts, but only to +defend practices which they hold to be convenient in the world, and are +afraid to blame in their congregations. Of the presumption with which +several of the writers utter their notions on the subject, I do not +think it would be right to speak farther, in an epilogue to which there +is no reply, in the terms which otherwise would have been deserved. In +their bearing on other topics, let me earnestly thank you (so far as my +own feelings may be permitted voice in the matter) for the attention +with which you have examined, and the courage with which you have +ratified, or at least endured, letters which could not but bear at first +the aspect of being written in a hostile--sometimes even in a mocking +spirit. That aspect is untrue, nor am I answerable for it: the things of +which I had to speak could not be shortly described but in terms which +might sound satirical; for all error, if frankly shown, is precisely +most ridiculous when it is most dangerous, and I have written no word +which is not chosen as the exactest for its occasion, whether it move +sigh or smile. In my earlier days I wrote much with the desire to +please, and the hope of influencing the reader. As I grow older and +older, I recognize the truth of the Preacher's saying, "Desire shall +fail, and the mourners go about the streets;" and I content myself with +saying, to whoso it may concern, that the thing is verily thus, whether +they will hear or whether they will forbear. No man more than I has ever +loved the places where God's honour dwells, or yielded truer allegiance +to the teaching of His evident servants. No man at this time grieves +more for the danger of the Church which supposes him her enemy, while +she whispers procrastinating _pax vobiscum_ in answer to the spurious +kiss of those who would fain toll curfew over the last fires of English +faith, and watch the sparrow find nest where she may lay her young, +around the altars of the Lord. + + Ever affectionately yours, + J. RUSKIN. + + + + + APPENDIX + + +Mr. Ruskin having kindly entrusted me with his valuable English +thirteenth century MS. service book, referred to p. 295, I have thought +it would be interesting to the readers of this volume to see a little +more in detail some of the origins of our Litany and Collects. I think +it will be owned that our Reformers failed to mend some of them in the +translation. I am quite unversed in the reading of ancient MSS., but I +hope the following, with the translation, will not be found incorrect. I +have preserved neither the contractions nor the responses repeated after +each petition, and have changed the mediaeval "e" into "ae," as "terre" +into "terrae."--EDITOR. + + * * * * * + +Ut dompnum apostolicum et omnes gradus ecclesiae in sancta religione +conservare digneris. + + _Te rogamus, audi nos, Domine._ + +Ut episcopum nostrum et gregem sibi commissum conservare digneris. + + _Te rogamus...._ + +Ut regi nostro et principibus nostris pacem et veram concordiam atque +victoriam, donare digneris. + +Ut episcopos et abbates nostros et congregationes illis commissas in +sancta religione conservare digneris. + +Ut congregationes omnium sanctorum in tuo sancto servitio conservare +digneris. + +Ut cunctum populum Christianum precioso sanguine tuo conservare +digneris. + +Ut omnibus benefactoribus nostris sempiterna bona retribuas. + +Ut animas nostras et parentum nostrorum ab eterna dampnatione eripias. + +Ut mentes nostras ad celestia desideria erigas. + +Ut obsequium servitutis nostrae rationabile facias. + +Ut locum istum et omnes habitantes in eo visitare et consolari digneris. + +Ut fructus terrae dare et conservare digneris. + +Ut inimicos sanctae Dei ecclesiae comprimere digneris. + +Ut oculos misericordiae tuae super nos reducere digneris. + +Ut miserias pauperum et captivorum intueri et relevare digneris. + +Ut omnibus fidelibus defunctis requiem eternam dones. + +Ut nos exaudire digneris. + +Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, + + _Parce nobis Domine._ + +Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, + + _Exaudi nos._ + +Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, + + _Miserere nobis._ + +Deus cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere suscipe deprecationem +nostram et quos delictorum cathena constringit misericordia tuae pietatis +absolvas, per Jesum Christum. + +Ecclesiae tuae Domine, preces placatus admitte ut destructis +adversitatibus universis secura tibi serviat libertate. + +Omnipotens sempiterne Deus qui facis mirabilia magna solus pretende +super famulum tuum episcopum nostrum et super cunctas congregationes +illi commissas spiritum gratiae tuae salutaris et ut in veritate tibi +complaceant perpetuum eis rorem tuae benedictionis infunde, per Jesum. + +Deus in cujus manu corda sunt regum qui es humilium consolator et +fidelium fortitudo et protector omnium in te sperantium, da regi nostro +et reginae populoque Christiano, triumphum virtutis tuae scienter +excolere, ut per te semper reparentur ad veniam. + +Pretende Domine et famulis et famulabus tuis dexteram celestis auxilii +ut te toto corde propinquant atque digne postulationes assequantur. + +Deus a quo sancta desideria recta consilia et justa sunt opera, da +servis tuis illam quam mundus dare non potest pacem ut et corda nostra +mandatis tuis et hostium ublata formidine tempora sint tua protectione +tranquilla. + +Ure igne sancti spiritus renes nostros et cor nostrum, Domine, ut tibi +corde casto serviamus et mundo corpore placeamus. + + + TRANSLATION + +That it may please Thee to keep the apostolic lord (_i.e._ the Pope) and +all ranks of the Church in Thy holy religion. + + _O Lord, we beseech Thee, hear us._ + +That it may please Thee to keep our bishop, and the flock committed to +him. + +That it may please Thee to give to our king and our princes (or chief +lords), peace, and true concord, and victory. + +That it may please Thee to keep our bishops and abbots, and the +congregations committed to them, in holy religion. + +That it may please Thee to keep the congregations of all saints in Thy +holy service. + +That it may please Thee to keep the whole Christian people with Thy +precious blood. + +That it may please Thee to requite all our benefactors with everlasting +blessings. + +That it may please Thee to preserve our souls and the souls of our +kindred from eternal damnation. + +That it may please Thee that Thou wouldest lift up our hearts to +heavenly desires. + +That it may please Thee to make the obedience of our service reasonable. + +That it may please Thee to visit and to comfort this place, and all who +dwell in it. + +That it may please Thee to give and preserve the fruits of the earth. + +That it may please Thee to restrain the enemies of the Holy Church of +God. + +That it may please Thee to look upon us with eyes of mercy. + +That it may please Thee to behold and relieve the miseries of the poor +and the prisoners. + +That it may please Thee to give eternal peace to all the faithful +departed. + +That it may please Thee to hear us. + +Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world. + + _Spare us, O Lord._ + +Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world. + + _Hear us, O Lord._ + +Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world. + + _Have mercy on us, O Lord._ + +O God, whose property it is always to pity and to spare, receive our +supplications, and by the mercy of Thy fatherly love, loose those whom +the chain of their sins keeps bound, through Jesus Christ our Lord. + +O Lord, receive with indulgence the prayers of Thy Church, that all +adversities being overcome, it may serve Thee in freedom without fear. + +Almighty, Eternal God, who alone doest great wonders, grant to Thy +servant our bishop, and to all the congregations committed to him, the +healthful spirit of Thy grace; and that they may please Thee in truth, +pour out upon them the perpetual dew of Thy blessing. + +O God, in whose hand are the hearts of kings, who art the consoler of +the meek and the strength of the faithful, and the protector of all that +trust in Thee, give to our king and queen and to the Christian people +wisely to manifest the glory of Thy power, that by Thee they may ever be +restored to forgiveness. + +Extend, O Lord, over Thy servants and handmaidens, the right hand of Thy +heavenly aid, that they may draw near unto Thee with all their heart, +and worthily obtain their petitions. + +Kindle with the fire of Thy Holy Spirit our reins and our hearts, O +Lord, that we may serve Thee with a clean heart, and please Thee with a +pure body. + +O God, from whom are all holy desires, right counsels, and just works, +give unto Thy servants that peace which the world cannot give, that both +our hearts (may obey) Thy commands, and the fear of the enemy being +taken away, we may have quiet times by Thy protection. + + * * * * * + +Upon one of the blank leaves of this MS. are some interesting remarks +upon its probable date, furnished by Mr. Ruskin himself. "The style, and +pieces of inner evidence in all this book speak it clearly of the first +half of the thirteenth century. The architecture is all round +arched--the roofs of Norman simplicity--unpinnacled--the severe and +simple forms of letter are essentially Norman, and the leaf and ball +terminations of the spiral of the extremities, exactly intermediate +between the Norman and Gothic types. The ivy and geranium leaves begin +to show themselves long before the end of the thirteenth century, and +there is not a trace of them in this book." This evidence of early date, +however, is qualified by the further statement, "old styles sometimes +hold on long in provincial MSS." + + J. RUSKIN. + + BRANTWOOD, _April 14th, 1881_. + + + THE END + + _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + _Edinburgh and London_ + + + + + _WORKS BY JOHN RUSKIN_ + + MODERN PAINTERS. In 5 vols. with all the Woodcuts, 1 Lithograph, + and the 89 Full-Page Steel Engravings. The text is that of the 1873 + Edition, with Notes, and a New Epilogue. Cloth, L6, 6s. the 5 + vols., imp. 8vo. + + THE STONES OF VENICE. Complete Edition. (Imperial 8vo.) 3 vols. + with the 53 Plates and the Text as originally issued, and Index. + Cloth, L4, 4s. the 3 vols. + + EXAMPLES OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF VENICE. With the Text and the 16 + Plates as originally published. Cloth cover (unbound), atlas folio + (about 25 in. by 17 in.), L2, 2s. + + THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE; or, The Architecture of the Nations of + Europe considered in its Association with Natural Scenery and + National Character. With Frontispiece in Colour, 14 Plates in + Photogravure, and 9 Full-Page and other Woodcuts. 4to, cloth, + 21s. + + VERONA, AND OTHER LECTURES. Delivered principally at the Royal and + London Institutions between 1870 and 1883. With Frontispiece in + colour and 11 Photogravure Plates. Med. 8vo, cloth, 15s. + + ON THE OLD ROAD: a Collection of Miscellaneous Pamphlets, Articles, + and Essays (1834-84). In 3 vols., 8vo, cloth, 30s. (Not sold + separately.) + + ARROWS OF THE CHACE: being a Collection of the Scattered Letters of + John Ruskin (1840-1880). With Preface. In 2 vols. cloth, 8vo, + 20s. (Not sold separately.) + + PRAETERITA. Outlines of Scenes and Thoughts perhaps Worthy of Memory + in my Past Life. Vols. I. and II. of this autobiography now ready, + in cloth, 13s. each, med. 8vo. + + THE ART OF ENGLAND. Six Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1883. With + Appendix and Index. Cloth, 6s., 4to. + + UNTO THIS LAST. Four Essays on the First Principles of Political + Economy. Tenth Edition. Cloth, 3s.; roan, gilt edges, 4s., + fcap. 8vo. + + SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN. 2 vols. crown 8vo, with Index. (Sold + separately), cloth, 6s. each; roan, gilt edges, 8s. 6d. each. + + THE FIRST SERIES (from Works written between 1843 and 1860), with + engraved Portrait. + + THE SECOND SERIES (from Works written between 1860 and 1888), with + Photogravure Portrait. + + FRONDES AGRESTES. Readings in "Modern Painters." Thirteenth Edition. + Cloth, 3s.; roan, gilt edges, 4s. + + + _Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. each; roan, gilt edges, 7s. 6d. each._ + + SESAME AND LILIES. A Small Complete Edition, containing the Three + Lectures, with long Preface and Index. + + MUNERA PULVERIS. Six Essays on the Elements of Political Economy. + Second Edition, with Index. + + The EAGLE'S NEST. Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science + to Art. Third Edition, with Index. + + TIME and TIDE, by WEARE and TYNE. Twenty-five Letters to a Working + Man of Sunderland on Laws of Work. Fourth Edition, with Index. + + The CROWN of WILD OLIVE. Four Essays on Work, Traffic, War, and the + Future of England. 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With Map and 40 Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. + + THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES: CHARLOTTE, COUNTESS CANNING, and + LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD. In 3 vols. of about 450 pages + each. Crown 8vo, cloth, L1, 11s. 6d. 32 Plates in Photogravure from + Lady Waterford's Drawings, and 32 Woodcuts. + + Also a Special Large-Paper Edition, with India Proofs of the + Plates. Crown 4to, L3, 3s. net. + + THE GURNEYS OF EARLHAM: Being Memoirs and Letters of the Eleven + Children of JOHN and CATHERINE GURNEY of Earlham, 1775-1875, and + the Story of their Religious Life under Many Different Forms. + Illustrated with 33 Photogravure Plates and 19 Woodcuts. In 2 + vols., crown 8vo, cloth, 25s. 712 pages. + + BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES: Being Memorial Sketches of ARTHUR PENRHYN + STANLEY, Dean of Westminster; HENRY ALFORD, Dean of Canterbury; + Mrs. DUNCAN STEWART; and PARAY LE MONIAL. Illustrated with 7 + Portraits and 17 Woodcuts. 1 vol., crown 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d. + + + _GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON_ + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + +1. P. 37: "Mis-understanding" is chosen to be written with a hyphen +("But, at all events, it is surely the pastor's duty to prevent his +flock from _mis_-understanding it...") + +2. P. 5 of the Appendix: "Miscellaneons" changed to "Miscellaneous" in +the header of the page. + +3. The words that were chosen to be written with a hyphen: mustard-seed +(p. 23), Janus-faced (p. 31), thorough-going (p. 116), slow-witted (p. +116), simple-minded (p. 126), so-called (p. 126), animad-versions (p. +245), Hand-made (p. 6, Appendix), Hand-printed (p. 7, Appendix) + +4. The words that were chosen to be written without a hyphen: +overcrowding (p. 91), shortcomings (p. 172), overthrow (p. 178), +widespread (p. 180). + +5. Added quotes (p. 153, '... for clerky people."') + +6. Added period after the Greek epigraph to letters VII (p. 19) and X +(p. 36). + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to the Clergy, by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO THE CLERGY *** + +***** This file should be named 39283.txt or 39283.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/8/39283/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Elizaveta Shevyakhova and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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