Feeling deeply, and anxiously, the greatness of the responsibility laid
upon me to act, as it were, the part of an envoy between so eminent a
teacher as Mr. Ruskin and my brethren in the Ministry, I have thought
that it might not be taken amiss if I prefaced my account of the origin
of the series of letters placed in my hands for publication (see Letter
8th July, 1879)[9] with just a mere allusion to one written to me four
years ago.
[9] No. IV.
One or two imperfect conversations, leading up to the subject of the
Resurrection, which had been broken off by accidental circumstances,
together with the letter alluded to, had stimulated in me a feeling of
something more than curiosity--rather one of anxious interest--to learn
more of Mr. Ruskin's views upon matters which are at the present day
giving rise to a good deal of agitated discussion among intellectual
men.
I am thankful to be able to avow that, for my own part, I am a firm and
conscientious, not a thoughtless and passive, believer in the doctrines
of the Church of Christ as held by the majority of serious-minded
religious men in the Established Church. Mr. Ruskin was mistaken in his
much too ready assumption that I (simply because I am a clergyman) am a
believer on compulsion; that for the peace of my soul I have only to
thank religious anaesthetics, and that I ever preach against the
wickedness of involuntary doubt. God forbid that I should ever take on
myself to denounce as wilful sin any scruples of conscience which owe
their origin to honest inquiries after truth. I trust that he knows me
better now.
Feeling thus decided and certain as to the ground I stand upon, and
earnestly desirous on every account to investigate the nature of Mr.
Ruskin's doubts, whatever they might be, in a most fraternal spirit, as
a kindly-favoured friend and neighbour (for, in our lake and mountain
district, an interval of a dozen miles does not destroy neighbourhood
between spirits with any degree of kinship), I sought for a more
lengthened conversation, and obtained the opportunity without
difficulty. The occasion was found in a very delightful summer afternoon
on the lake, and up the sides of the Old Man of Coniston, to view a
group of remarkable rocks by the desolate, storm-beaten crags of Goat's
Water,[10] that saddest and loneliest of mountain tarns, which lies in
the deep hollow between the mountain and its opposing buttress, the Dow
Crags. This most interesting ramble in the undivided company of one so
highly and so deservedly valued in the world of letters and of art and
higher matters yet, served to my mind for more purposes than one, while
we wandered amidst impressive scenes, passing from the sweet and gentle
peaceful loveliness of the bright green vale of Coniston and its
charming lake to the bleak desolation, the terrible sublimity of the
mountain tarn barriered in by its stupendous crags, amongst which lay
those singular-looking, weather-beaten, and lightning-riven rocks which
were the more immediate object of our visit.
[10] "Deucalion," p. 222.
But to myself the chief and happiest result of our conversation was the
firm conviction that neither the censorious and unthinking world, nor
perhaps even Mr. Ruskin himself, knows how deeply and truly a Christian
man, in the widest sense of the word, Mr. Ruskin is. It is neither the
time nor the place, nor indeed would it be consistent with propriety, to
analyze before others the convictions formed on that memorable summer
afternoon. It must suffice for the present to say that the opinions then
formed laid the foundation of a friendship on a happier basis than that
which had heretofore been permitted me, and prepared my way to enter
with confidence upon the plan of which the present volume is the fruit.
Last June, in the course of a short visit to Brantwood, I proposed to
Mr. Ruskin to come to address the members of a Northern Clerical
Society, a body of some seventy or eighty clergy, who have done me the
honour to appoint me their honorary secretary, now for about nine
years, since its foundation. On the ground of impaired health, the
legacy left behind it by the serious illness which had, two years
before, threatened even his life, Mr. Ruskin excused himself from
appearing in person before our Society; but proposed instead to write
letters to me which might serve as a basis for discussion amongst us.
Letter I. will explain the origin of the series that come after.