Chapter VII: Letter I: will explain the origin of the series that come after (3)

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