BRANTWOOD, _8th July, 1879_.
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 say, 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 continual 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 Christian Gospel as startling. Are
you not bid to go into _all_ the world and preach it to every creature?
(I should myself think the clergyman most likely to do good who accepted
the [Greek: pase te ktisei] so literally as at least to sympathize 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 that 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, _how_
this Gospel is to be preached either "[Greek: pantachou]" or to "[Greek:
panta ta ethne]," if first its preachers have not determined quite
clearly what it _is_? And might not such definition, acceptable to the
entire body of the Church of Christ, be arrived at by merely explaining,
in their completeness 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 of
mine 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, remaining always
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.