I wonder if Fors will let me say any small proportion, this year, of
what I intend. I wish she would, for my readers have every right to be
doubtful of my plan till they see it more defined; and yet to define it
severely would be to falsify it, for all that is best in it depends on
my adopting whatever good I can find, in men and things, that will work
to my purpose; which of course means action in myriads of ways that I
neither wish to define, nor attempt to anticipate. Nay, I am wrong,
even in speaking of it as a plan or scheme at all. It is only a method
of uniting the force of all good plans and wise schemes; it is a
principle and tendency, like the law of form in a crystal; not a plan.
If I live, as I said at first, I will endeavour to show some small part
of it in action; but it would be a poor design indeed, for the
bettering of the world, which any man could see either quite round the
outside, or quite into the inside of.
But I hope in the letters of this next year to spend less time in
argument or attack; what I wish the reader to know, of principle, is
already enough proved, if only he take the pains to read the preceding
letters thoroughly; and I shall now, as far as Fors will let me, carry
out my purpose of choosing and annotating passages of confirmatory
classical literature; and answering, as they occur, the questions of my
earnest correspondents, as to what each of them, in their place of
life, may immediately do with advantage for St. George’s help.
If those of my readers who have been under the impression that I wanted
them to join me in establishing some model institution or colony, will
look to the fifth page of Letter I., they will see that so far from
intending or undertaking any such thing, I meant to put my whole
strength into my Oxford teaching; and, for my own part, to get rid of
begging letters and live in peace.
Of course, when I have given fourteen thousand pounds away in a year,
[1] everybody who wants some money thinks I have plenty for them. But
my having given fourteen thousand pounds is just the reason I have not
plenty for them; and, moreover, have no time to attend to them, (and
generally, henceforward, my friends will please to note that I have
spent my life in helping other people, and am quite tired of it; and if
they can now help me in my work, or praise me for it, I shall be much
obliged to them; but I can’t help them at theirs).
But this impression of my wanting to found a colony was founded on page
23 of Letter V., and page 15 of Letter VIII. Read them over again now,
altogether.
If the help I plead for come, we will indeed try to make some small
piece of English ground beautiful; and if sufficient help come, many
such pieces of ground; and on those we will put cottage dwellings, and
educate the labourers’ children in a certain manner. But that is not
founding a colony. It is only agreeing to work on a given system. Any
English gentleman who chooses to forbid the use of steam machinery—be
it but over a few acres,—and to make the best of them he can by human
labour, or who will secure a piece of his mountain ground from dog,
gun, and excursion party, and let the wild flowers and wild birds live
there in peace;—any English gentleman, I say, who will so command
either of these things, is doing the utmost I would ask of him;—if,
seeing the result of doing so much, he felt inclined to do more, field
may add itself to field, cottage rise after cottage,—here and there the
sky begin to open again above us, and the rivers to run pure. In a very
little while, also, the general interest in education will assuredly
discover that healthy habits, and not mechanical drawing nor church
catechism, are the staple of it; and then, not in my model colony only,
but as best it can be managed in any unmodelled place or way—girls will
be taught to cook, boys to plough, and both to behave; and that with
the heart,—which is the first piece of all the body that has to be
instructed.
A village clergyman, (an excellent farmer, and very kind friend of my
earliest college days,) sent me last January a slip out of the ‘Daily
Telegraph,’ written across in his own hand with the words “Advantage of
Education.” The slip described the eloquence and dexterity in falsehood
of the Parisian Communist prisoners on their trial for the murder of
the hostages. But I would fain ask my old friend to tell me himself
whether he thinks instruction in the art of false eloquence should
indeed receive from any minister of Christ the title of ‘education’ at
all; and how far display of eloquence, instead of instruction in
behaviour, has become the function, too commonly, of these ministers
themselves.
I was asked by one of my Oxford pupils the other day why I had never
said any serious word of what it might seem best for clergymen to do in
a time of so great doubt and division.
I have not, because any man’s becoming a clergyman in these days must
imply one of two things—either that he has something to do and say for
men which he honestly believes himself impelled to do and say by the
Holy Ghost,—and in that case he is likely to see his way without being
shown it,—or else he is one of the group of so-called Christians who,
except with the outward ear “have not so much as heard whether there be
any Holy Ghost,” and are practically lying, both to men and to
God;—persons to whom, whether they be foolish or wicked in their
ignorance, no honest way can possibly be shown.
The particular kinds of folly also which lead youths to become
clergymen, uncalled, are especially intractable. That a lad just out of
his teens, and not under the influence of any deep religious
enthusiasm, should ever contemplate the possibility of his being set up
in the middle of a mixed company of men and women of the world, to
instruct the aged, encourage the valiant, support the weak, reprove the
guilty, and set an example to all;—and not feel what a ridiculous and
blasphemous business it would be, if he only pretended to do it for
hire; and what a ghastly and murderous business it would be, if he did
it strenuously wrong; and what a marvellous and all but incredible
thing the Church and its power must be, if it were possible for him,
with all the good meaning in the world, to do it rightly;—that any
youth, I say, should ever have got himself into the state of
recklessness, or conceit, required to become a clergyman at all, under
these existing circumstances, must put him quite out of the pale of
those whom one appeals to on any reasonable or moral question, in
serious writing. I went into a ritualistic church, the other day, for
instance, in the West End. It was built of bad Gothic, lighted with bad
painted glass, and had its Litany intoned, and its sermon delivered—on
the subject of wheat and chaff—by a young man of, as far as I could
judge, very sincere religious sentiments, but very certainly the kind
of person whom one might have brayed in a mortar among the very best of
the wheat with a pestle, without making his foolishness depart from
him. And, in general, any man’s becoming a clergyman in these days
implies that, at best, his sentiment has overpowered his intellect; and
that, whatever the feebleness of the latter, the victory of his
impertinent piety has been probably owing to its alliance with his
conceit, and its promise to him of the gratification of being regarded
as an oracle, without the trouble of becoming wise, or the grief of
being so.
It is not, however, by men of this stamp that the principal mischief is
done to the Church of Christ. Their foolish congregations are not
enough in earnest even to be misled; and the increasing London or
Liverpool respectable suburb is simply provided with its baker’s and
butcher’s shop, its alehouse, its itinerant organ-grinders for the
week, and stationary organ-grinder for Sunday, himself his monkey, in
obedience to the commonest condition of demand and supply, and without
much more danger in their Sunday’s entertainment than in their
Saturday’s. But the importunate and zealous ministrations of the men
who have been strong enough to deceive themselves before they deceive
others;—who give the grace and glow of vital sincerity to falsehood,
and lie for God from the ground of their heart, produce forms of moral
corruption in their congregations as much more deadly than the
consequences of recognizedly vicious conduct, as the hectic of
consumption is more deadly than the flush of temporary fever. And it is
entirely unperceived by the members of existing churches that the
words, “speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with
a hot iron,” do not in the least apply to wilful and self-conscious
hypocrites, but only to those who do not recognize themselves for such.
Of wilful assumption of the appearance of piety, for promotion of their
own interests, few, even of the basest men, are frankly capable; and to
the average English gentleman, deliberate hypocrisy is impossible. And,
therefore, all the fierce invectives of Christ, and of the prophets and
apostles, against hypocrisy, thunder above their heads unregarded;
while all the while Annas and Caiaphas are sitting in Moses’ seat for
ever; and the anger of God is accomplished against the daughter of His
people, “for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her
priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. They
have wandered blind in the streets; they have polluted themselves with
blood, so that men could not touch their garments.” [2]
Take, for example, the conduct of the heads of the existing Church
respecting the two powers attributed to them in this very verse. There
is certainly no Bishop now in the Church of England who would either
dare in a full drawing-room to attribute to himself the gift of
prophecy, in so many words; or to write at the head of any of his
sermons, “On such and such a day, of such and such a month, in such and
such a place, the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying.” Nevertheless,
he claims to have received the Holy Ghost himself by laying on of
hands; and to be able to communicate the Holy Ghost to other men in the
same manner. And he knows that the office of the prophet is as simply
recognized in the enumeration of the powers of the ancient Church, as
that of the apostle, or evangelist, or doctor. And yet he can neither
point out in the Church the true prophets, to whose number he dares not
say he himself belongs, nor the false prophets, who are casting out
devils in the name of Christ, without being known by Him;—and he
contentedly suffers his flock to remain under the impression that the
Christ who led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, left the
gift of prophecy out of the group as one needed no longer.
But the second word, ‘priest,’ is one which he finds it convenient to
assume himself, and to give to his fellow-clergymen. He knows, just as
well as he knows prophecy to be a gift attributed to the Christian
minister, that priesthood is a function expressly taken away from the
Christian minister. [3] He dares not say in the open drawing-room that
he offers sacrifice for any soul there; and he knows that he cannot
give authority for calling himself a priest from any canonical book of
the New Testament. So he equivocates on the sound of the word
‘presbyter,’ and apologizes to his conscience and his flock by
declaring, “The priest I say,—the presbyter I mean,” without even
requiring so much poor respect for his quibble as would be implied by
insistance that a so-called priest should at least be an Elder. And
securing, as far as he can, the reverence of his flock, while he
secretly abjures the responsibility of the office he takes the title
of, again he lets the rebuke of his God fall upon a deafened ear, and
reads that “from the Prophet unto the Priest, every one dealeth
falsely,” without the slightest sensation that his own character is so
much as alluded to.
Thus, not daring to call themselves prophets, which they know they
ought to be; but daring, under the shelter of equivocation, to call
themselves priests, which they know they are not, and are forbidden to
be; thus admittedly, without power of prophecy, and only in stammering
pretence to priesthood, they yet claim the power to forgive and retain
sins. Whereupon, it is to be strictly asked of them, whose sins they
remit; and whose sins they retain. For truly, if they have a right to
claim any authority or function whatever—this is it. Prophesy, they
cannot;—sacrifice, they cannot;—in their hearts there is no vision—in
their hands no victim. The work of the Evangelist was done before they
could be made Bishops; that of the Apostle cannot be done on a Bishop’s
throne: there remains to them, of all possible office of organization
in the Church, only that of the pastor,—verily and intensely their own;
received by them in definite charge when they received what they call
the Holy Ghost;—“Be to the flock of Christ, a shepherd, not a
wolf;—feed them, devour them not.”
Does any man, of all the men who have received this charge in England,
know what it is to be a wolf?—recognize in himself the wolfish
instinct, and the thirst for the blood of God’s flock? For if he does
not know what is the nature of a wolf, how should he know what it is to
be a shepherd? If he never felt like a wolf himself, does he know the
people who do? He does not expect them to lick their lips and bare
their teeth at him, I suppose, as they do in a pantomime? Did he ever
in his life see a wolf coming, and debate with himself whether he
should fight or fly?—or is not rather his whole life one headlong
hireling’s flight, without so much as turning his head to see what
manner of beasts they are that follow?—nay, are not his very hireling’s
wages paid him for flying instead of fighting?
Dares any one of them answer me?—here from my college of the Body of
Christ I challenge every mitre of them: definitely, the Lord of St.
Peter’s borough, whom I note as a pugnacious and accurately worded
person, and hear of as an outspoken one, able and ready to answer for
his fulfilment of the charge to Peter: How many wolves does he know in
Peterborough—how many sheep?—what battle has he done—what bites can he
show the scars of?—whose sins has he remitted in Peterborough—whose
retained?—has he not remitted, like his brother Bishops, all the sins
of the rich, and retained all those of the poor?—does he know, in
Peterborough, who are fornicators, who thieves, who liars, who
murderers?—and has he ever dared to tell any one of them to his face
that he was so—if the man had over a hundred a year?
“Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, and so fetch
them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that they may be saved among the
remnant of the true Israelites.” Who are the true Israelites, my lord
of Peterborough, whom you can definitely announce for such, in your
diocese? Or, perhaps, the Bishop of Manchester will take up the
challenge, having lately spoken wisely—in generalities—concerning
Fraud. Who are the true Israelites, my lord of Manchester, on your
Exchange? Do they stretch their cloth, like other people?—have they any
underhand dealings with the liable-to-be-damned false
Israelites—Rothschilds and the like? or are they duly solicitous about
those wanderers’ souls? and how often, on the average, do your
Manchester clergy preach from the delicious parable, savouriest of all
Scripture to rogues, at least since the eleventh century, when I find
it to have been specially headed with golden title in my best Greek MS.
“of the Pharisee and Publican”—and how often, on the average, from
those objectionable First and Fifteenth Psalms?
For the last character in St. Paul’s enumeration, which Bishops can
claim, and the first which they are bound to claim, for the perfecting
of the saints, and the work of the ministry, is that of the Doctor or
Teacher.
In which character, to what work of their own, frank and faithful, can
they appeal in the last fifty years of especial danger to the Church
from false teaching? On this matter, my challenge will be most
fittingly made to my own Bishop, of the University of Oxford. He
inhibited, on the second Sunday of Advent of last year, another Bishop
of the English Church from preaching at Carfax. By what right? Which of
the two Bishops am I, their innocent lamb, to listen to? It is true
that the insulted Bishop was only a colonial one;—am I to understand,
therefore, that the Church sends her heretical Bishops out as Apostles,
while she keeps her orthodox ones at home? and that, accordingly, a
stay-at-home Bishop may always silence a returned Apostle? And,
touching the questions which are at issue, is there a single statement
of the Bishop of Natal’s, respecting the Bible text, which the Bishop
of Oxford dares to contradict before Professor Max Müller, or any other
leading scholar of Europe? Does the Bishop of Oxford himself believe
every statement in the Bible? If not,—which does he disbelieve, and
why? He suffers the whole collection of books to be spoken of—certainly
by many clergymen in his diocese—as the Word of God. If he disbelieves
any portion of it, that portion he is bound at once to inhibit them
from so calling, till inquiry has been made concerning it; but if he
and the other orthodox home-Bishops,—who would very joyfully, I
perceive, burn the Bishop of Natal at Paul’s, and make Ludgate Hill
safer for the omnibuses with the cinders of him,—if they verily believe
all, or even, with a living faith, any, vital part of the Bible, how is
it that we, the incredulous sheep, see no signs following them that
believe;—that though they can communicate the Holy Spirit, they cannot
excommunicate the unholy one, and apologetically leave the healing of
sick to the physician, the taking up of serpents to the juggler, and
the moving of mountains to the railway-navvy?
“It was never meant that any one should do such things literally, after
St. Paul’s time.”
Then what was meant, and what is, doctors mine?
Challenge enough, for this time, it seems to me; the rather that just
as I finish writing it, I receive a challenge myself, requiring
attentive answer. Fors could not have brought it me at better time. The
reader will find it the first in the Notes and Correspondence of this
year; and my answer may both meet the doubts of many readers who would
not so frankly have expressed them; and contain some definitions of
principle which are necessary for our future work.
My correspondent, referring to my complaint that no matron nor maid of
England had yet joined the St. George’s Company, answers, for her own
part, first that her husband and family prevent her from doing it;
secondly, that she has done it already; thirdly, that she will do it
when I do it myself. It is only to the third of these pleas that I at
present reply.
She tells me, first, that I have not joined the St. George’s Company
because I have no home. It is too true. But that is because my father,
and mother, and nurse, are dead; because the woman I hoped would have
been my wife is dying; and because the place where I would fain have
stayed to remember all of them, was rendered physically uninhabitable
to me by the violence of my neighbours;—that is to say, by their
destroying the fields I needed to think in, and the light I needed to
work by. Nevertheless, I have, under these conditions, done the best
thing possible to me—bought a piece of land on which I could live in
peace; and on that land, wild when I bought it, have already made, not
only one garden, but two, to match against my correspondent’s; nor that
without help from children who, though not mine, have been cared for as
if they were.
Secondly; my correspondent tells me that my duty is to stay at home,
instead of dating from places which are a dream of delight to her, and
which, therefore, she concludes, must be a reality of delight to me.
She will know better after reading this extract from my last year’s
diary; (worth copying, at any rate, for other persons interested in
republican Italy). “Florence, 20th September, 1874.—Tour virtually
ended for this year. I leave Florence to-day, thankfully, it being now
a place of torment day and night for all loving, decent, or industrious
people; for every face one meets is full of hatred and cruelty; and the
corner of every house is foul; and no thoughts can be thought in it,
peacefully, in street, or cloister, or house, any more. And the last
verses I read, of my morning’s readings, are Esdras II., xv. 16, 17:
‘For there shall be sedition among men, and invading one another; they
shall not regard their kings nor princes, and the course of their
actions shall stand in their power. A man shall desire to go into the
city, and shall not be able.’”
What is said here of Florence is now equally true of every great city
of France or Italy; and my correspondent will be perhaps contented with
me when she knows that only last Sunday I was debating with a very dear
friend whether I might now be justified in indulging my indolence and
cowardice by staying at home among my plants and minerals, and
forsaking the study of Italian art for ever. My friend would fain have
it so; and my correspondent shall tell me her opinion, after she
knows—and I will see that she has an opportunity of knowing—what work I
have done in Florence, and propose to do, if I can be brave enough.
Thirdly; my correspondent doubts the sincerity of my abuse of railroads
because she suspects I use them. I do so constantly, my dear lady; few
men more. I use everything that comes within reach of me. If the devil
were standing at my side at this moment, I should endeavour to make
some use of him as a local black. The wisdom of life is in preventing
all the evil we can; and using what is inevitable, to the best purpose.
I use my sicknesses, for the work I despise in health; my enemies, for
study of the philosophy of benediction and malediction; and railroads,
for whatever I find of help in them—looking always hopefully forward to
the day when their embankments will be ploughed down again, like the
camps of Rome, into our English fields. But I am perfectly ready even
to construct a railroad, when I think one necessary; and in the opening
chapter of ‘Munera Pulveris’ my correspondent will find many proper
uses for steam machinery specified. What is required of the members of
St. George’s Company is, not that they should never travel by
railroads, nor that they should abjure machinery; but that they should
never travel unnecessarily, or in wanton haste; and that they should
never do with a machine what can be done with hands and arms, while
hands and arms are idle.
Lastly, my correspondent feels it unjust to be required to make
clothes, while she is occupied in the rearing of those who will require
them.
Admitting (though the admission is one for which I do not say that I am
prepared) that it is the patriotic duty of every married couple to have
as large a family as possible, it is not from the happy Penelopes of
such households that I ask—or should think of asking—the labour of the
loom. I simply require that when women belong to the St. George’s
Company they should do a certain portion of useful work with their
hands, if otherwise their said fair hands would be idle; and if on
those terms I find sufficient clothing cannot be produced, I will use
factories for them,—only moved by water, not steam.
My answer, as thus given, is, it seems to me, sufficient; and I can
farther add to its force by assuring my correspondent that I shall
never ask any member of St. George’s Company to do more, in relation to
his fortune and condition, than I have already done myself.
Nevertheless, it will be found by any reader who will take the trouble
of reference, that in recent letters I have again and again intimated
the probable necessity, before the movement could be fairly set on
foot, of more energetic action and example, towards which both my
thoughts and circumstances seem gradually leading me; and, in that
case, I shall trustfully look to the friends who accuse me of cowardice
in doing too little, for defence against the, I believe, too probable
imputations impending from others, of folly in doing too much.