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, butrather 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 toboththe Father and the Son. This makesallthe clauses of the apostolic blessing intelligible and living.
Letter VI
Page 14: "Forothersins," 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 notpossess, 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
Onpage 21St. 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 Himselfusedthe prayer He gave us, at least in its entirety as it stands.
Pages20,21: Mr. Ruskin seems to me to draw most strongly the very comparison to which he objects. Surely the kingdom of Christisthe 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, notvice versâ.
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. Onpage 26he 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 abusedby 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 thefirstthing 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 uponthat 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.
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. Myneighbour 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 inmoney-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 footstepsof 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 thepopularis auraand 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.
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 platformnot 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 theminutenesswould be thedisagreement. 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 onlyone, though perhaps thechief, 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.
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 tothe 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 anemployéof 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 menthat 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 thefourth Letterthe 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, theIncarnation, 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.'"
'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? Forthe eighth Lettercontains 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 beequalled 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 usother 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 peculiarschemes 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 feelO 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 byone 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.
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 remarkssent 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 inLetter 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,ghastlyjests." 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 skyShoots higher much than he that means a tree."
"Who aimeth at the skyShoots higher much than he that means a tree."
In fact, Ruskin's teaching, like that of the Bible, is not unpractical, butunpractised.
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 answeris (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?
ThenLetter 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 toLetter V.; and I tried, in reading the Letters for myself, to do for them whatLetter 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 dowe 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 aboutGod (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 tocome outside of us, but in our hearts: 'the kingdom of God is within you.'" This is the sense in which we can hastenit.
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 ofdebtsfor it, is admirable ("Dimitte nobisdebitanostra"), 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 inLetter VIII.
I pass over the notes on the advantage of "forms of prayer," and come to the end of LetterX.and LetterXI., which go together, and say practically, Pray honestly or not at all. "Faithful prayer implies alwayscorrelative 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 toask 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 inLetter XI., about parents looking for"opportunities" for their children, is exactly parallel with "Sesame and Lilies," 8vo edition, p. 2 (Sub. 1, § 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.
ToC
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 happycircumstance he is indebted for so fortunate a partiality. At the same time it must be confessed thatLaudari a viro laudatois 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 hissudden sallies serve the purpose of the condiments, which displeasing if taken alone, give piquancy to our ordinary food.
F. A. Malleson.
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 possessionyou 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.
[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 oursightof this world and the dark ways of it. I hope to have you for a St. George's soldier one day.
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.
Youbelieve what you wish to believe; teach that it is wicked to doubt it, and remain at rest and in much self-satisfaction.
Ibelieve 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 asinvoluntaryWolves.
I, therefore, am in perpetual effort tolearn 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 haveformed opinions which you could no more move than you could Coniston Old Man. They may be wrong, God knows; Itrustin 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.
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.