As I am now often asked, in private letters, the constitution of St.
George’s Company, and cannot, hitherto, refer, in answer, to any clear
summary of it, I will try to write such a summary in this number of
Fors; that it may henceforward be sent to inquirers as alone
sufficiently explanatory.
The St. George’s Company is a society established to carry out certain
charitable objects, towards which it invites, and thankfully will
receive, help from any persons caring to give it, either in money,
labour, or any kind of gift. But the Company itself consists of persons
who agree in certain general principles of action, and objects of
pursuit, and who can, therefore, act together in effective and constant
unison.
These objects of pursuit are, in brief terms, the health, wealth, and
long life of the British nation: the Company having thus devoted
itself, in the conviction that the British nation is at present
unhealthy, poor, and likely to perish, as a power, from the face of the
earth. They accordingly propose to themselves the general medicining,
enriching, and preserving in political strength, of the population of
these islands; they themselves numbering at present, in their ranks,
about thirty persons,—none of them rich, several of them sick, and the
leader of them, at all events, not likely to live long.
Whether the nation be healthy, or in unwholesome degradation of body
and mind; wealthy, or in continual and shameful distress; strong, or in
rapid decline of political power and authority,—the reader will find
debated throughout the various contents of the preceding five volumes
of Fors. But there is one public fact, which cannot be debated—that the
nation is in debt. And the St. George’s Company do practically make it
their first, though not their principal, object, to bring that state of
things to an end; and to establish, instead of a National Debt, a
National Store. (See the last line of the fifth page of the first
letter of the series, published 1st January, 1871, and the eleventh,
and twenty-seventh, letters, throughout.)
That very few readers of this page have any notion, at this moment,
what a National Debt is, or can conceive what a National Store should
be, is one of many evil consequences of the lies which, under the title
of “Political Economy,” have been taught by the ill-educated, and
mostly dishonest, commercial men who at present govern the press of the
country.
I have again and again stated the truth in both these matters, but must
try once more to do it, emphatically, and intelligibly.
A ‘civilized nation’ in modern Europe consists, in broad terms, of (A)
a mass of half-taught, discontented, and mostly penniless populace,
calling itself the people; of (B) a thing which it calls a
government—meaning an apparatus for collecting and spending money; and
(C) a small number of capitalists, many of them rogues, and most of
them stupid persons, who have no idea of any object of human existence
other than money-making, gambling, or champagne-bibbing. A certain
quantity of literary men, saying anything they can get paid to say,—of
clergymen, saying anything they have been taught to say,—of natural
philosophers, saying anything that comes into their heads,—and of
nobility, saying nothing at all, combine in disguising the action, and
perfecting the disorganization, of the mass; but with respect to
practical business, the civilized nation consists broadly of mob,
money-collecting machine, and capitalist.
Now when the civilized mob wants to spend money for any profitless or
mischievous purposes,—fireworks, illuminations, battles, driving about
from place to place, or what not,—being itself penniless, it sets its
money-collecting machine to borrow the sum needful for these amusements
from the civilized capitalist.
The civilized capitalist lends the money, on condition that, through
the money-collecting machine, he may tax the civilized mob
thenceforward for ever. The civilized mob spends the money forthwith,
in gunpowder, infernal machines, masquerade dresses, new boulevards, or
anything else it has set its idiotic mind on for the moment; and
appoints its money-collecting machine to collect a daily tax from its
children, and children’s children, to be paid to the capitalists from
whom it had received the accommodation, thenceforward for ever.
That is the nature of a National Debt.
In order to understand that of a National Store, my readers must first
consider what any store whatever, serviceable to human beings, consists
of. A store properly means a collection of useful things. Literally, it
signifies only a quantity,—or much of anything. But the heap of broken
bottles which, I hear, is accumulating under the principal cliff of
Snowdon, through the contributions of tourists from the summit, is not
properly to be called a store; though a binful of old wine is. Neither
is a heap of cannon-balls a store; [49] though a heap of potatoes is.
Neither is a cellar full of gunpowder a store; though a cellar full of
coals is. A store is, for squirrels, of nuts; for bees, of honey; for
men, of food, clothes, fuel, or pretty things, such as toys or
jewels,—and, for educated persons, of books and pictures.
And the possession of such a store by the nation would signify, that
there were no taxes to pay; that everybody had clothes enough, and some
stuff laid by for next year; that everybody had food enough, and plenty
of salted pork, pickled walnuts, potted shrimps, or other conserves, in
the cupboard; that everybody had jewels enough, and some of the biggest
laid by, in treasuries and museums; and, of persons caring for such
things, that everybody had as many books and pictures as they could
read or look at; with quantities of the highest quality besides, in
easily accessible public libraries and galleries.
Now the wretches who have, at present, the teaching of the people in
their hands, through the public press, tell them that it is not
‘practical’ to attempt to bring about this state of things;—and that
their government, or money-collecting machine, must not buy wine,
potatoes, jewels, or pictures for them; but must buy iron plates two
feet thick, gunpowder, and red tape. And this popular instruction is
given, you will find, in the end, by persons who know that they could
not get a percentage themselves, (without the public’s coming to know
it,) on buying potatoes or pictures; but can get it, and a large one,
on manufacturing iron, on committing wholesale murder, or on tying up
papers with red tape.
Now the St. George’s Company propose to themselves,—and, if the God
they believe in, lives, will assuredly succeed in their proposition,—to
put an end to this rascally and inhuman state of things, and bring
about an honest and human state of them, instead. And they have already
actually begun the accumulation of a National Store of good and useful
things; by the collection and administration of which, they are not
themselves to derive any gain whatsoever, but the Nation only.
We are, therefore, at present, as I said at first, a company
established for a charitable purpose; the object of charity being the
entire body of the British nation, now paying taxes to cheating
capitalists. But we hope to include, finally, in our ranks a large
number of the people themselves, and to make quite a different sort of
people of them, carrying out our company’s laws, to the abolition of
many existing interests, and in abrogation of many existing
arrangements.
And the laws which we hope thus to see accepted are none of them new;
but have been already recommended by all wise men, and practised by all
truly prosperous states; nor is there anything whatever new in the
modes of administration proposed;—and especially be it noted, there is
nothing of the present leader’s fancies, in any part or character of
the scheme—which is merely the application, to our nationally diseased
thoughts and practices, of the direct precepts of the true sages of
past time, who are every one of them in harmony concerning all that is
necessary for men to do, feel, and know.
And we hope to establish these laws, not by violence, but by obeying
them ourselves, to the extent of which existing circumstances admit;
and so gradually showing the advantage of them, and making them
acceptable to others. Not that, for the enforcement of some of them,
(the abolition of all manufactures that make the air unwholesome, for
instance,) we shall hesitate to use the strong hand, when once our
hands are strong. But we shall not begin by street riots to throw down
our neighbour’s chimneys, or break his machinery;—though what we shall
end in doing—God knows, not I,—but I have my own thoughts concerning
it; not at present needing exposition.
The Companions, for the most part, will remain exactly in the condition
of life they held before entering the Society; but they will direct all
their powers, and some part of their revenues, in that condition, to
the advance of its interests. We hold it shortsighted and ruinous
policy to form separate institutions, or attempt the sudden
establishment of new systems of labour. Every one of us must use the
advantages he now possesses, whatever they may be, and contend with the
difficulties arising out of his present position, gradually modifying
it, as he can, into conformity with the laws which the Society desires
may be ultimately observed by all its members.
The first of our conditions of Companionship is Honesty. We are a
company of honest persons, vowing to have no fellowship with dishonest
ones. Persons who do not know the meaning of the word ‘Honesty,’ or who
would in anywise, for selfish convenience, tolerate any manner of
cheating or lying, either in others or themselves, we class
indiscriminately with the self-conscious rogues, for whom we have more
respect; and our separation from all such is to be quite manifest and
unmistakable. We do not go into monasteries,—we seek no freedom of
conscience in foreign lands,—we profess no severities of asceticism at
home. We simply refuse to have any dealings with rogues, whether at
home or abroad.
I repeat, for this must be strictly understood; we are a company of
honest persons; and will add to ourselves none but persons of that
quality. We, for our own part, entirely decline to live by passing bad
half-crowns, by selling bad goods, or by lying as to their relative
quality. And we hold only such communication with persons guilty of
such practices, as we should with any other manner of thieves or liars.
It will follow that anything gravely said by a Companion of St. George
may be, without investigation, believed; and anything sold by one,
without scrutiny, bought for what it is said to be,—of which recovery
of old principles of human speech and commerce, no words can set forth
the infinitude of beneficial consequences, when it is once brought
about among a discernible and every day increasing body of persons.
The second condition of companionship is the resolution, so far as we
have ability, to earn our own living with our own hands; and not to
allow, much less compel, other people to work for us: this duty being
of double force,—first, as necessary to our own health and honour; but
much more, as striking home at the ghastly universal crime of modern
society,—stealing the labourer’s bread from him, (making him work, that
is to say, for our’s, as well as his own,) and then abusing and
despising him for the degradation of character which his perpetual toil
involves; [50] deliberately, in many cases, refusing to encourage him
in economy, that we may have him at our mercy to grind in the mill;
always selling as much gin and beer to him as we can persuade him to
swill, at the rate of twenty-pence for twopence’ worth, (see Letter
XXVII.,) to fill our own pockets; and teaching him pious catechisms,
that we may keep him our quiet slave.
We cannot, at present, all obey this great law concerning labour,
however willing we may be; for we may not, in the condition of life in
which we have been brought up, have been taught any manual labour by
which we now could make a living. I myself, the present Master of the
Society, cannot obey this, its second main law; but then I am only a
makeshift Master, taking the place till somebody more fit for it be
found. Sir Walter Scott’s life, in the full strength of it at
Ashestiel, and early at Abbotsford, with his literary work done by ten,
or at latest twelve, in the morning; and the rest of the day spent in
useful work with Tom Purdie in his woods, is a model of wise moral
management of mind and body, for men of true literary power; but I had
neither the country training of body, nor have the natural strength of
brain, which can reach this ideal in anywise. Sir Walter wrote as a
stream flows; but I do all my brain-work like a wrung sponge, and am
tired out, and good for nothing, after it. Sir Walter was in the open
air, farm-bred, and playing with lambs, while I was a poor little
Cockney wretch, playing, in a dark London nursery, with a bunch of
keys. I do the best I can, and know what ought to be; and that is all
the Company really need of me. I would fain, at this moment, both for
pleasure and duty’s sake, be cutting the dead stems out of my wood, or
learning to build a dry stone wall under my good mason, Mr. Usher, than
writing these institutes of St. George; but the institutes are needed,
and must be written by me, since there is nobody else to write them.
Any one, therefore, may be a Companion of St. George who sincerely does
what they can, to make themselves useful, and earn their daily bread by
their own labour: and some forms of intellectual or artistic labour,
inconsistent (as a musician’s) with other manual labour, are accepted
by the Society as useful; provided they be truly undertaken for the
good and help of all; and that the intellectual labourer ask no more
pay than any other workman. A scholar can generally live on less food
than a ploughman, and there is no conceivable reason why he should have
more. [51] And if he be a false-hearted scholar, or a bad painter or
fiddler, there is infinite reason why he should have less. My readers
may have been surprised at the instant and eager assertion, as of a
leading principle, in the first of these letters, (January ’71,) that
people cannot live by art. But I spoke swiftly, because the attempt so
to live is among the worst possible ways they can take of injurious
begging. There are a few, a very few persons born in each generation,
whose words are worth hearing; whose art is worth seeing. These born
few will preach, or sing, or paint, in spite of you; they will starve
like grasshoppers, rather than stop singing; and even if you don’t
choose to listen, it is charitable to throw them some crumbs to keep
them alive. But the people who take to writing or painting as a means
of livelihood, because they think it genteel, are just by so much more
contemptible than common beggars, in that they are noisy and offensive
beggars. I am quite willing to pay for keeping our poor vagabonds in
the workhouse; but not to pay them for grinding organs outside my door,
defacing the streets with bills and caricatures, tempting young girls
to read rubbishy novels, or deceiving the whole nation to its ruin, in
a thousand leagues square of dirtily printed falsehood, every morning
at breakfast. Whatever in literature, art, or religion, is done for
money, is poisonous itself; and doubly deadly, in preventing the
hearing or seeing of the noble literature and art which have been done
for love and truth. If people cannot make their bread by honest labour,
let them at least make no noise about the streets; but hold their
tongues, and hold out their idle hands humbly; and they shall be fed
kindly.
Then the third condition of Companionship is, that, after we have done
as much manual work as will earn our food, we all of us discipline
ourselves, our children, and any one else willing to be taught, in all
the branches of honourable knowledge and graceful art attainable by us.
Having honestly obtained our meat and drink, and having sufficiently
eaten and drunken, we proceed, during the rest of the day, to seek
after things better than meat and drink; and to provide for the nobler
necessities of what, in ancient days, Englishmen used to call their
souls.
To this end, we shall, as we increase in numbers, establish such
churches and schools as may best guide religious feeling, and diffuse
the love of sound learning and prudent art. And when I set myself first
to the work of forming the Society, I was induced to do so chiefly by
the consciousness that the balanced unison of artistic sensibility with
scientific faculty, which enabled me at once to love Giotto, and learn
from Galileo, gave me singular advantages for a work of this kind. More
particularly, the course of study through which, after being trained in
the severest schools of Protestant divinity, I became acquainted with
the mythology of Greece, and legends of Rome, in their most vivid power
over the believing minds of both nations, permits me now to accept with
freedom and respect the concurrence of a wider range of persons holding
different views on religious subjects, than any other scholar I know,
at the present day, in England, would feel himself secure in the hope
of reconciling to a common duty, and in uncontested elements of faith.
The scheme, and elementary means, of this common education, I am now
occupied in arranging and choosing as I best may. [52] In especial, I
have set myself to write three grammars—of geology, botany, and
zoology, which will contain nothing but indisputable facts in those
three branches of proper human learning; and which, if I live a little
longer, will embrace as many facts as any ordinary schoolboy or
schoolgirl need be taught. In these three grammars, (‘Deucalion,’
‘Proserpina,’ and ‘Love’s Meinie,’ [53]) I shall accept every aid that
sensible and earnest men of science can spare me, towards the task of
popular education: and I hope to keep thankful records of the names of
the persons who are making true discoveries in any of these sciences,
and of the dates of such discovery, which shall be unassailably
trustworthy as far as they extend. I hope also to be able to choose,
and in some degree provide, a body of popular literature of entirely
serviceable quality. Of some of the most precious books needed, I am
preparing, with the help of my friends, new editions, for a common
possession in all our school libraries.
If I have powers fitted for this task, (and I should not have attempted
it but in conviction that I have,) they are owing mainly to this one
condition of my life, that, from my youth up, I have been seeking the
fame, and honouring the work, of others;—never my own. I first was
driven into literature that I might defend the fame of Turner; since
that day I have been explaining the power, or proclaiming the praise,
of Tintoret,—of Luini,—of Carpaccio,—of Botticelli,—of Carlyle;—never
thinking for an instant of myself: and sacrificing what little faculty,
and large pleasure, I had in painting, either from nature or noble art,
that, if possible, I might bring others to see what I rejoiced in, and
understand what I had deciphered. There has been no heroism in this,
nor virtue;—but only, as far as I am myself concerned, quaint ordering
of Fate; but the result is, that I have at last obtained an instinct of
impartial and reverent judgment, which sternly fits me for this final
work, to which, if to anything, I was appointed.
And for the right doing of it, and for all future work of the same
kind, requiring to be done for the Society by other persons, it is
absolutely needful that the person charged with it should be implicitly
trusted, and accurately obeyed by the Companions, in all matters
necessary to the working of the Society. He cannot lose his time in
contention or persuasion; he must act undisturbedly, or his mind will
not suffice for its toil; and with concurrence of all the Society’s
power, or half their power will be wasted, and the whole perverted, by
hesitation and opposition. His authority over them must correspond
precisely, in the war against the poverty and vice of the State, to
that of a Roman Dictator, in his war against its external enemies.
Of a Roman ‘Dictator,’ I say, observe: not a Roman ‘Emperor.’ It is not
the command of private will, but the dictation of necessary law, which
the Society obeys:—only, the obedience must be absolute, and without
question; faithful to the uttermost,—that is to say, trusting to the
uttermost. The practice of faith and obedience to some of our
fellow-creatures is the alphabet by which we learn the higher obedience
to heaven; and it is not only needful to the prosperity of all noble
united action, but essential to the happiness of all noble living
spirits.
I have not, in my past letters, much noticed this condition of the
Society’s work; because its explanation will involve that of our
religious creed to the full; and its enforcement must be in the very
teeth of the mad-dog’s creed of modernism, “I will not be dictated to,”
which contains the essence of all diabolical error. For, in sum, the
moral scale is raised exactly according to the degree and motive of
obedience. To be disobedient through temptation, is human sin; but to
be disobedient for the sake of disobedience, fiendish sin. To be
obedient for the sake of success in conduct, is human virtue; but to be
obedient for the sake of obedience, angelic virtue.
The constitution of the Society is to be, therefore, that of an
aristocracy electing an absolute chief, (as the Senate of Rome their
Dictator, or the Senate of Venice their Doge,) who is to be entirely
responsible for the conduct of the Society’s affairs; to appoint its
principal officers, and to grant or refuse admission to candidates for
Companionship. But he is liable to deposition at any moment, by a vote
of the majority of the Companions; and is to have no control over the
property of the Society, but through the Trustees in whom that property
is vested.
And now, for farther explanation of the details of our constitution and
design, I must refer the reader to the Fors for March of this year;
and, if he desires to pursue his inquiry, to the 8th, 9th, 11th, 17th,
and 19th Letters of the previous series. These state clearly what we
propose to do, and how: but, for defence of our principles, the entire
series of Letters must be studied; and that with quiet attention, for
not a word of them has been written but with purpose. Some parts of the
plan are confessedly unexplained, and others obscurely hinted at; nor
do I choose to say how much of this indistinctness has been
intentional. But I am well assured that if any patient and candid
person cares to understand the book, and master its contents, he may do
so with less pains than would be required for the reading of any
ordinary philosophical treatise on equally important subjects.
Only readers should be clearly aware of one peculiarity in the manner
of my writing in Fors, which might otherwise much mislead them:—namely,
that if they will enclose in brackets with their pen, passages of
evident irony, all the rest of the book is written with absolute
seriousness and literalness of meaning. The violence, or grotesque
aspect, of a statement may seem as if I were mocking; but this comes
mainly of my endeavour to bring the absolute truth out into pure
crystalline structure, unmodified by disguise of custom, or obscurity
of language; for the result of that process is continually to reduce
the facts into a form so contrary, if theoretical, to our ordinary
impressions, and so contrary, if moral, to our ordinary practice, that
the straightforward statement of them looks like a jest. But every such
apparent jest will be found, if you think of it, a pure, very dreadful,
and utterly imperious, veracity.
With this understanding, the following series of aphorisms contain the
gist of the book, and may serve to facilitate the arrangement of its
incidental matter.
1. Any form of government will work, provided the governors are real,
and the people obey them; and none will work, if the governors are
unreal, or the people disobedient. If you mean to have logs for kings,
no quantity of liberty in choice of the wood will be of any profit to
you:—nor will the wisest or best governor be able to serve you, if you
mean to discuss his orders instead of obeying them. Read carefully on
this matter Letter XIII., pp. 7 and 8.
2. The first duty of government is to see that the people have food,
fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and
intellectual education.
3. Food, fuel, and clothes can only be got out of the ground, or sea,
by muscular labour; and no man has any business to have any, unless he
has done, if able, the muscular work necessary to produce his portion,
or to render, (as the labour of a surgeon or physician renders,)
equivalent benefit to life. It indeed saves both toil and time that one
man should dig, another bake, and another tan; but the digger, baker,
and tanner are alike bound to do their equal day’s duty; and the
business of the government is to see that they have done it, before it
gives any one of them their dinner.
4. While the daily teaching of God’s truth, doing of His justice, and
heroic bearing of His sword, are to be required of every human soul
according to its ability, the mercenary professions of preaching,
law-giving, and fighting must be entirely abolished.
5. Scholars, painters, and musicians, may be advisedly kept, on due
pittance, to instruct or amuse the labourer after, or at, his work;
provided the duty be severely restricted to those who have high special
gifts of voice, touch, and imagination; [54] and that the possessors of
these melodious lips, light-fingered hands, and lively brains, do
resolutely undergo the normal discipline necessary to ensure their
skill; the people whom they are to please, understanding, always, that
they cannot employ these tricksy artists without working double-tides
themselves, to provide them with beef and ale.
6. The duty of the government, as regards the distribution of its work,
is to attend first to the wants of the most necessitous; therefore, to
take particular charge of the back streets of every town; leaving the
fine ones, more or less, according to their finery, to take care or
themselves. And it is the duty of magistrates, and other persons in
authority, but especially of all bishops, to know thoroughly the
numbers, means of subsistence, and modes of life of the poorest persons
in the community, and to be sure that they at least are virtuous and
comfortable; for if poor persons be not virtuous, after all the
wholesome discipline of poverty, what must be the state of the rich,
under their perilous trials and temptations? [55]—but, on the other
hand, if the poor are made comfortable and good, the rich have a fair
chance of entering the kingdom of heaven also, if they choose to live
honourably and decently.
7. Since all are to be made to labour for their living, and it is not
possible to labour without materials and tools, these must be provided
by the government, for all persons, in the necessary quantities. If
bricks are to be made, clay and straw must be provided; if sheep are to
be kept, grass; if coats are to be made, cloth; if oakum to be picked,
oakum. All these raw materials, with the tools for working them, must
be provided by the government, at first, free of cost to the labourer,
the value of them being returned to them as the first-fruits of his
toil; and no pawnbrokers or usurers may be allowed to live by lending
sea to fishermen, air to fowlers, land to farmers, crooks to shepherds,
or bellows to smiths.
8. When the lands and seas belonging to any nation are all properly
divided, cultivated, and fished, its population cannot be increased,
except by importing food in exchange for useless articles,—that is to
say, by living as the toy-manufacturers of some independent nation,
which can both feed itself, and afford to buy toys besides. But no
nation can long exist in this servile state. It must either emigrate,
and form colonies to assist in cultivating the land which feeds it, or
become entirely slavish and debased. The moment any nation begins to
import food, [56] its political power and moral worth are ended.
9. All the food, clothing, and fuel required by men, can be produced by
the labour of their own arms on the earth and sea; all food is
appointed to be so produced, and must be so produced, at their peril.
If instead of taking the quantity of exercise made necessary to their
bodies by God, in the work appointed by God, they take it in hunting or
shooting, they become ignorant, irreligious, and finally insane, and
seek to live by fighting as well as by hunting; whence the type of
Nimrod in the circle of the Hell-towers, which I desired you to study
in Dante. If they do not take exercise at all, they become sensual, and
insane in worse ways. And it is physically impossible that true
religious knowledge, or pure morality, should exist among any classes
of a nation who do not work with their hands for their bread. Read
Letter XI. carefully.
10. The use of machinery [57] in agriculture throws a certain number of
persons out of wholesome employment, who must thenceforward either do
nothing, or mischief. The use of machinery in art destroys the national
intellect; and, finally, renders all luxury impossible. All machinery
needful in ordinary life to supplement human or animal labour may be
moved by wind or water: while steam, or any modes of heat-power, may
only be employed justifiably under extreme or special conditions of
need; as for speed on main lines of communication, and for raising
water from great depths, or other such work beyond human strength.
11. No true luxury, wealth, or religion is possible to dirty persons;
nor is it decent or human to attempt to compass any temporal prosperity
whatever by the sacrifice of cleanliness. The speedy abolition of all
abolishable filth is the first process of education; [58] the
principles of which I state in the second group of aphorisms following.
12. All education must be moral first; intellectual secondarily.
Intellectual, before—(much more without)—moral education, is, in
completeness, impossible; and in incompleteness, a calamity.
13. Moral education begins in making the creature to be educated,
clean, and obedient. This must be done thoroughly, and at any cost, and
with any kind of compulsion rendered necessary by the nature of the
animal, be it dog, child, or man.
14. Moral education consists next in making the creature practically
serviceable to other creatures, according to the nature and extent of
its own capacities; taking care that these be healthily developed in
such service. It may be a question how long, and to what extent, boys
and girls of fine race may be allowed to run in the paddock before they
are broken; but assuredly the sooner they are put to such work as they
are able for, the better. [59] Moral education is summed when the
creature has been made to do its work with delight, and thoroughly; but
this cannot be until some degree of intellectual education has been
given also.
15. Intellectual education consists in giving the creature the
faculties of admiration, hope, and love.
These are to be taught by the study of beautiful Nature; the sight and
history of noble persons; and the setting forth of noble objects of
action.
16. Since all noble persons hitherto existent in the world have trusted
in the government of it by a supreme Spirit, and in that trust, or
faith, have performed all their great actions, the history of these
persons will finally mean the history of their faith; and the sum of
intellectual education will be the separation of what is inhuman, in
such faiths, and therefore perishing, from what is human, and, for
human creatures, eternally true.
These sixteen aphorisms contain, as plainly as I can speak it, the
substance of what I have hitherto taught, and am now purposed to
enforce practice of, as far as I am able. It is no business of mine to
think about possibilities;—any day, any moment, may raise up some one
to take the carrying forward of the plan out of my hands, or to furnish
me with larger means of prosecuting it; meantime, neither hastening nor
slackening, I shall go on doing what I can, with the people, few or
many, who are ready to help me.
Such help, (to conclude with what simplest practical direction I can,)
may be given me by any persons interested in my plans, mainly by
sending me money; secondly, by acting out as much as they agree with of
the directions for private life given in Fors; and thirdly, by
promulgating and recommending such principles. If they wish to do more
than this, and to become actual members of the Company, they must write
to me, giving a short and clear account of their past lives, and
present circumstances. I then examine them on such points as seem to me
necessary; and if I accept them, I inscribe their names in the roll, at
Corpus Christi College, with two of our masters for witnesses. This
roll of the Company is written, hitherto, on the blank leaves of an
eleventh-century MS. of the Gospels, always kept in my rooms; and would
enable the Trustees, in case of my death, at once to consult the
Companions respecting the disposition of the Society’s property. As to
the legal tenure of that property, I have taken counsel with my
lawyer-friends till I am tired; and, as will be seen by the statement
in the first page of the Correspondence, I purpose henceforward to
leave all such legal arrangements to the discretion of the Companions
themselves.