|i;ri: m: km.. e^- LETTERS JOHN RUSKIN REV. F.'A. MALLESON, M.A. / 'kar of Broughton-in-FHrncss lEnitrti liy Srijoinas 3. Jfiisc % London : Prh'a/^/y Printed 1S56 I'.! '■ '-■ 4 6^^ THE IMPRESSION OF THIS BOOK IS LIMITED TO A FEW COPIES FOR Private Circulation only. NOTK. Of the 38 Letters contained in this volume 10 have already been printed, though in a sadly garbled and mntilatcd for?n. These 10 originally appeared in " Letters to the Clergy," a privately printed pamphlet issued in 1879, atid 7vere afterivards included in " The Lord's Prayer and the Church,'" 1880 {second ed. 188^), from which ivork Mr. Weddcrhurn re- printed them in "On the Old A'oad." Jhe whole 38 are now given precisely from the original holographs. ■ CONTENTS. LKTTKR I. Oxford. \st Novenibcr, 1872 . LF.TTER II. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 22>rdjuly, 1875 . LETTER III. [13rantwood, Coniston, Lanes.] %th September, 1876 .... 10 LETTER IV. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 20lh Jitly, [1879.] . . . .12 I ETTER V. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. zydjune, [i8]79 . . . .14 LETTER VI. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 6th July, 1879 . . . . 17 viii CONTENTS. PAGE LETTER VII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. ^thjuly, [l8]79 20 LETTER VIII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. \oih July, 1879 23 LETTER IX. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. \2thjuly, 1879 .... 26 LETTIOR X. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. \\thjuly, 1879 31 LETTER XI. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 30////;//j', [1879.] .... 36 LETTER XII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. [3 i.c/ ////,', 1879.] . . . .38 LETTER XIII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 2nd August, 1879 .... 40 CONTEXTS. \x PAGE LETTER XIV. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 4/A August, 1879 . . . .41 LETTER XV. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. Tth August y 1879 .... 43 LETTER -XVL Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. ()th August, 1879 .... 45 LETTER XVn. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 19//^ August, 1879 .... 52 LETTER XVin. ^oth August, 1879 .... 56 LETTER XIX. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 2nd September, 1879 .... 58 LETTER XX. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. yd September, 1879 . . . .60 1 X CONTENTS. PACE LETTER XXI. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. [()ih September, 1879.] ... 66 LETTER XXn. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. \T,th September, xZ"]!^ . ... 68 LETTER XXIII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. \Sfth September, 1879 .... 69 LETTER XXIV. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. l^fh September, 1879 .... 71 LETTER XXV. [Sheffield.] \yh October, 1879 • • • • 77 LETTER XXVI. Sheffield. I'jth October, 1879 .... 79 LETTER XXVII. 315/ October, 1879 .... 82 CONTENTS. xi LETTER XXVIII. I2th November, 1879 .... S3 LETTER XXIX. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. \Qth May, 1880 84 LETTER XXX. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. May, 1S80 86 LETTER XXXI. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 14M May, i88o 88 LETTER XXXII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 2btli May, 18S0 90 LETTER XXXIII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. "jth/iDie, 1880 91 LETTER XXXIV. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. i-^ih April, 1 88 1 . . . -93 xii CONTENTS. PAGE LETTER XXXV. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 2yd April, 1 88 1 . . . -95 i.trrTER XXXVI. [Switzerland.] 20th November, 1S82 . . . • 9^ LETTER XXXVII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. 22nd January, 1883 .... 100 LETTER XXXVIII. Brantwood, Coniston, Lanes. bth February, 1883 . . .102 LETTERS. LETTERS JOHN RUSKIN. LETTER I. Corpus Christi College, Oxford. November ls(, 1872, My Dear Sir, I am sincerely obliged for your letter ; I am always necessarily in a false posi- tion with people whom I cannot speak to as I have spoken to you. They as- sume — naturally — that on the whole I am very well off — enjoying my work — doing as I choose — and hypochondriac 4 LETTERS OF perhaps from having too much my own way. You will henceforward under- stand me better— though no happy man — least of all a man happy in his family, caji understand the separation from God which a life so wretched as mine signifies. No matter how foolish one may have been — one can't expect a moth with both its wings burnt off, and dropt into the hot tallow, to sing Psalms with what is left it of antennae. Ever truly yours, J. RUSKIN. JOHN RUSK IN. LETTER II. Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. July iird, 1S75. Dear Mr. Malleson, 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 be- lieve what you wish to believe, teach that it is wicked to doubt it, and remain at rest, and in much self-satisfaction. / 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 6 LETTERS OF disgrace our Master and destroy His sheep as involuntary wolves. I, therefore, am in perpetual effort to learn and discern, — in perpetual unrest, and Dis satisfaction 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 hye works, in learn- ing my business of a teacher — was to read the New Testament through in the earliest Greek MS. (eleventh cen- tury) which I could get hold of. I examined every syllable of it, and have more notes on various readings, and on the real meanings of perverted pas- sages, 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, JOHN RUSK IN. 7 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 trusi 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 de- sired my publisher to send you ojie* of many books which — after doing the work I have done, you would have to read, before you could really use words in my meanings. If you will read the * The Crown of Wild Olive. 8 LETTERS UF introduction carefully, and especially dwell on the loth to 15th lines of the 15th page of the introduction, — you will at least know me a little better than to think I believe in my own Resur- rection — but not in Christ's ; and if you look to the final essay on War, may find some things in it which will be of in- terest to you in your own work. Please also read carefully the 84th and 85th pages of text. I shall hope to see you with your friends on the day you name. Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. I will answer the other parts of your letter viva voce — about money, &c. AVhen you know more of me, you will find I am now a beggar — not a giver. I have given seven thousand pounds to a charity of my own fancy*, and now — beg of others for that only. * The St. Gtoj-gc's Guild. JOHN RUSK IN, 9 I will say one word as to your own letter. You say, " We see the effects of the jResurrectiofi." Pardon me — you see only the effects of belief in it. There is not an ornament on your tongs — poker — or railroad carriage which is not the effect of belief in Jupiter, and the birth of Athena from his head. But they don't prove the facts, for all that. lo LETTERS OF LETTER III. [Brantwood.] September 8M, 1876. Dear Mr. Malleson, I am grateful for your letters, but if you will calculate the work necessary for the tasks I have in hand you will find I have absolutely no time for private correspondence, except what is owed to dear friends and full fellow workers. You have also your own sufficient work — and I do not suppose it will ever bring you much in the way of mine. When you feel inclined to help me, you must find out how by reading Fors carefully. I don't debate. I simply say — Whosoever likes to come thus, let him come, else let him attend JOHX RUSKIN. II to his own work and not attempt to judge mine. Ever I'aithfully yours, J. R. 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 judgment. 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 discip- line to the Jesuits. We are their precise opposite — fiercely and at all costs /rank, while they are calmly and for all interests lying. 12 LETTERS OF LETTER IV. Brantwood, CoNiSTON, Lancashire. June 20th, [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 mat- ters respecting which my feelings have been long so earnest, if in any wise it were 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 JOHN RUSKIN. 13 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 to 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. 14 LETTERS OF LETTER V. BkA.NTWOOL), CoNisTox, Lancashire. /////.' 2yd, [i8]79. Dear Mr. Malleson, Walking, and talking, are now alike impossible to me ; 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 yotir kindness and truth ; nor do I fear being myself mis- understood by you ; what I may be able to put into written form, so as to admit of being laid before your guests JOHN KL'Sk'hX. 15 in council, must be set down without any question of personal feeling — as simply as a mathematical question or demonstration. The mathematical question which it seems to me such an assembly may be earnestly called on by laymen to solve is surely axiomatic : the definition of themselves as a body, and of their busi- ness as such. Namely : Whether as clergymen of the Church of England they consider themselves merely so called as the attached servants of a particular state — as one would say. The guides of Chamouni or Grindehvald, a num- bered body of examined and trust- worthy persons belonging to those villages, who nevertheless have no Grindelwaldic, Chamounic, or otherwise sectarian opinions on the subject of geography or glacier walking, but arc prepared to teach a common and uni- versal science of Locality and Athletics, founded on sure survey and practice. l6 LETTERS OF 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 re- quired 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, [. RUSKIN. JOHN RUSKIX. 17 LETTER VL Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. July 6t/i, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, You must make no public announce- ment of any paper by me. I am not able to count on my powers of mind for an hour — and will absolutely under- take no responsibility. What I do send you — if anything — Avill 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 I should like to ask. — If when the sequence of letters 1 8 LETTERS OF is in your possession you like to read any part or parts of them as a subject of discussion at your afternoon meet- ings I shall be glad and grateful. Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. P.S. — My first letter contained a Layman's plea for 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 of England, but of the Gospel to all nations ; and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of the Gos- pel of Augustine, but of the Gospel of Christ, — then the Layman's second question would be : Can this Gospel of Christ in its essen- tial conditions 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, JOHN RUSK IN. 19 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 impor- tant point in the whole tenor of their teaching,* to a " Homily of Justifica- tion,"! which is not generally in the possession, or even probably within the comprehension, of simple persons? * Art. XI. t Homily XI. of the Second Table. LETTERS OF LETTER VI I. Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. July %th, 79. Dear Mr. Malleson, 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 saj', 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 con- tinual 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 Chris- jnifY RrsKi.w -I tian (iospel as startling. Are you not bid to go into a/l the world and preach it to every creature ? (I should myself think the clergyman most likely to do good who accepted the Traa-ri TT) KTLo-ei so literally as at least to sym- ]-)athize 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 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, ho%v this Gospel is to be preached either TravTa^ov or to iravra. to. IBvi] if first its preachers have not determined quite clearly what G 22 LETTERS OF it is ? And might not such definition, acceptable to the entire body of tlic Church of Christ, be arrived at by merely explaining, in their complete- ness 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 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, remain- ing always Faithfully and affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. JOHN RUSK IN. L E T r E R \' 1 1 1. Brantwood, Co.MSTON, Lancashire. July lOt/i, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, My meaning, in saying that the Lord's Prayer might be made a founda- tion 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 jmrt in making it clear and living to his congregation. And the first clause of it, of course 24 LETTERS OF rightly explained, gives us the ground of what is surely a mighty part of the Gospel — its " first and great command- ment," 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 loveable 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 de- livered from its raging flame by some scheme of pardon for which they are to JOHN RVSKIN. 25 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, instead of dead : " The grace of Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship, &c." — the most tender word being that used of the Father ? Ever affectionately yours, J. R. H 26 LETTERS OE LETTER IX. Brantwood, CoxiSTON, Lancashire. July 121 h, 1879. ])ear Mr. Malleson, 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 had forbidden "bad language," and wishes them to jtray that everybody may be civil to JOHN RUSK IN. 27 Him ? Is it any otherwise with the third Commandment? Do not most look on it merely in the light of the statute of swearing ? and read the " will not hold him guiltless " merely as a delicate intimation that, however carelessly a man may let out a round oath, there really is something wrong in it? On the other hand, can any- thing be more tremendous than the words themselves — double-negatived : ov yap fjir] KaOapcar] . . . Kuptos ? For of/ier sins there is washing ; — for this, none ! the 7th marking the real power of the English, which (I sup- pose) is literal to the Hebrew. To my layman's mind, of practical need in the present state of the Church, nothing is so immediate as that of ex- plaining to the congregation the mean- ing 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 28 LETTERS OF the devil in the midst of them — pre- siding 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 " the taking that name in vain is the sum of " the de- ceivableness of //■^righteousness in them that perish." Without dwelling on the possibility - — which I do not myself, how- ever, for a moment doubt — of an honest clergyman's being able actually to prevent the entrance among his con- gregation of persons leading openly wicked lives, could any subject of consideration be more vital to the purposes of your meeting than the difference between the present and the possible state of the Christian Church JOHN Ri'SKJN. 29 which would result were it more the effort of zealous parish priests, instead of getting wicked poor people to come to Church, to get the 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 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 re- sponses, in His Church service, on the lips of the usurer and the adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those outcast ones. It is for the meeting of Clergymen them- selves — not for a layman addressing I 30 LETTERS OF 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. JOHN R US KIN. LETTER X. Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. Jidy i^/i, 1879. Dear Mr. ]\Ialleson, Sincere thanks for both your letters and the proofs sent. Your comment and conducting Hnk, 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 was meant to imply that eternal presence of Christ ; as in another passage, referring to the Crea- 32 LETTERS OE tion, " When His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, and raised the slopes of Calvary ; " but in so far as we dwell on that truth, " Hast thou seen Me, Philip, and not the Father ? " 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 relations to us, and commands to us, it is as the Son of Man, not the " power of God and wisdom of God,"' that He acts and speaks. Not the Power ; for He must pray, like one of us. Not as the Wis- dom : for He must not know " ;/it be possible " His prayer should be heard. And in what I want to say of the third clause of His prayer iyllis, not merely as His ordering, but His using), it is especially this confusion between His kingdom, and His Father's, that I want to see the dis- ciples guarded against. I believe very JOHN RUSKIX. 33 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, &c." And I fancy that the mind of the most faith- ful 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 imtch for, but not to pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greater kingdom to which He, risen and hav- ing all His enemies under His feet, is to surrender His, " that God may be All in All." And, though the greatest, it is t/iat everlasting kingdom which the poorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten Christ's coming. " Of the day and the hour, knoweth none." But the king- dom of God is as a grain of mustard- seed :— We can sow of it ; it is as a 34 LETTERS OF foam-globe of leaven : we can mingle it ; and its glory and 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 v/ould be well if many of us, in reading that text, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink," had even got as far as the understanding that it was at least as much, and that until we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to inspire the happy. Ever affectionately yours, J. R. I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of Christ you have sent me in a private letter. I may say JOHN RUSK IN. 35 at once that I am sure it will do much good, and -will be upright and intel- ligible, which how few religious writings are ! 36 LETTERS OF LETTER XI. Brantwood, CoNiSTON, Lancashire. July 30///, [1879.] Dear Mr. Malleson, I fear I have kept the proofs too long, but I wanted to look at them again. I am confirmed in my im- pression that the book will do much good, but I think it would have done more if you had written the lives of two or three of your parishioners. Just as I would answer to a painter who sent me a picture of the Last Supper — *' You had better it seems to me have painted a Harvest Home." I am greatly doubtful of the possibility, in JOHN R US KIN. 37 these days, of writing or painting on such subjects, advisedly and securely. Ever affectionately yours, J. R. 38 LETTERS OF LETTER X 1 1. Brantwood, CoNiSTON, Lancashire. \Jitly 315/, 1879.] Dear Mr. Malleson, I have received this week the two most astonishing letters I ever yet received in my hfe. And one of them is yours read this morning, teUing 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 com- municate the thought to your publisher, JOHN RUSK IN. 39 and I never meant you to use my former one, in that manner. Mind, a publisher thinks only of money, and / 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 cul- minated to-day. Ever affectionately yours, J. R. I am so puzzled — I can scarcely think of anything else — till you tell me what you mean, and the bit about being "called late." Have you done no work in the vineyard, yet, then ? 40 LETTERS OF LETTER XIII. Brantvvuud, CoNisTON, Lancashire. August 2nd, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, 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 II. Esdras iv. verses 2, 20, 21. Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. JOHN RUSK IN. 41 LETTER XIV. Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. August a,th, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, It is just because you undertook the task so happily, that I should have thought you unfit to write the hfe of a Man of Sorrows, even had He been a Man only. But your last letter (re- member) claims Inspiration for your guide, and recognises 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, M 42 LETTERS OF and 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 fifth Evangelist without more proof of miraculous appointment to that office than you are conscious of. I know you to be conscientious, yes, but I think the judicial doom of this country is to have the conscience alike of its Priests and Prophets hardened. Why should any letter of mine make you anxious if you are indeed con- scious of inspiration ? Ever affectionately yours, J. R. JOHN RUSKIN. 43 LETTER XV. Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. August 'Jill, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, I hope to be able soon now to re- sume the series of letters ; but it seems to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more, respect- ing the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands contain questions enough, 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 44 LETTERS OF ask you if you print the letters at all, to print them without omission, and if you do not print them, to return to me, for my own expansion and arrangement. Ever affectionately yours, J. R. JOHN RUSK IN. 45 LETTER XVI. Brantwood, CoxiSTON, Lancashire, August <)t/i, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, 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 " com- mandment for t/iem." For they are always ready enough to call themselves jjriests (though tliey 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 un- pleasant advice given them by the N 46 LETTERS OF prophets, in that self-assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as ever Dionysus his hon-skin, when he finds the character of Herakles incon- venient. " 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 eccle- siastics supplied to the demand of our increasing 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 i/iey had taken, and were taking, in " cor- JOHN RUSK IN. 47 rupting the covenant of the Lord with Levi, and causing many to stumble at the Law." Perhaps the most subtle and uncon- scious way in which the religious teachers upon whom the end of the world is 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, instead of explaining to them that the first and intensest article of their Father's will was their own sanc- tification, and following comfort and wealth ; 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 48 LETTERS OF would tliink, by the tone of the eager- est preachers nowadays, that they held their blessed office to be that, not of showing them 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 mis- sionary body (with the hottest Evan- gelistic 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 with either 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 pro- claiming the Mediator of the New JOHN RUSK IN. 49 Testament, that "they which were called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance," I have never yet heard so much as ove heartily pro- claiming 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. August I2,th, 1879. Ending Idler of August ()lh. I have allowed myself, in the begin- ning 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), be- cause the assumption of the media- o 50 LETTERS OF torial, in defect of the pastoral, office by the clergy fulfils itself, naturally and always, in their pretending to absolve the sinner from his punishment, in- stead 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, in- stead, 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 JOHN RUSKIiV. 51 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 unto him- self, the curious dual power, and Janus- faced majesty in mischief, of the pro- phet who prophesies falsely, and the priest that bears rule by his means. And the people love to have it so. Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. 52 LETTERS OF LETTER XVII. Brantwood, CoNisTON, Lancashire. August i()th, 1879. Dear Mr Malleson, 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 deliberate, though express- ing the bitterness of twenty years of vain sorrow and pleading concerning these things. Nor am I able to write, otherwise, anything of the next follow- ing clause of the prayer ; for no words could be burning enough to tell evils which have come on the world from men's using it thoughtlessly and bias- JOHN RUSK IN. 53 phemously, 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 — witli impartial and level sweep^to his con- gregation the great pastoral order : " The man that will not work, neither shall he eat " ; and be resolute in re- quiring each member of his flock to tell him zuhat — 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 steaHng his dinner ; and the actual fact is, that the great mass of men calling themselves Chris- tians do actually live by robbing the poor of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever ; and the sim[)le ex- p 54 LETTERS OF amination of the mode of 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-in- dulgence, and wide in its offices of temporal ministry to the poor, are in- sisted 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, " Child- ren, have ye any meat ? " must ulti- mately be always the greater spiritual JOHN RUSKIN. 55 one : " Children, have ye here any Holy Spirit ? " or, " Have ye not yet heard whether there be any ? and, in- stead 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 mes- sage to his people of this day is — if he be faithful — " Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve." I am, dear Mr. Malleson, Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. S6 LETTERS OF LETTER XVIII. Brantwood, CoNiSTON, Lancashire. Aus^iist 30///, 1879. Dear Mr. Malleson, I have your two kind little notes. It is a pleasure to me that Christopher Harvey is not in your library, for it will be a privilege to me to be al- lowed to place it there. I send it by this post, and I doubt not you will have many a happy hour with it. There comes with it also the first volume of the books of mine I do wish the public to read * ; and if you can get Mr. Crosse to look at the opening lecture in it which discusses the office of books in * Sesame and Lilies. JUHN RUSK IN. 57 genera], I believe he will not think the writer of it likely to let public fancy or demand guide him in his decision which of his books they shall or shall not have cheap. This question of book price is touched upon at p. 44, and if Mr. Crosse will read on to the sixtieth, he will find more important things — wholly indisputable — stated concerning national policy than all the journals of England have had in them for the last twelvemonth.* You will find the priest question also touched on, with others, at p. 22. I will look up the passages in Fors, and send you them on Monday, and shall be most glad to answer as I best can, any notes you send me on the subject of the letters. Always affectionately yours, J. R. * The passage for instance about poor's rates at bottom of page 57 is worth all the five volumes of Modern Painters — and five thousand issues of the Tunes in one. 58 LETTERS OF L E T T E R XIX. Br ANT WOOD, CoNisTON, Lancashire. September 2nd, 1S79. Dear Mr. Malleson, That there are only 100 copies in that form is greater 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 really in use or not. I yesterday ordered a Fors to be sent you, containing in its close, the most JOHN RUSK IN. 59 important piece of a religious character in the book. This I hope you will also allow to stay on your shelves. The two I send 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 6>^/