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
Letter V.) speaking with condemnation of a plan of salvation which sets
forth the Divine Son as appeasing the wrath of the Father in heaven,
does not himself give expression to words, as to the love of the Father,
which almost imply that in his estimation the Divine mind is not in
unity in itself? I might further ask for Mr. Ruskin to put more
definiteness into his remarks on usury, and to particularize the
special forms of that condemnable practice which the clergy should
boldly denounce. The few hints which he throws out on this subject show
that to his own thoughts there is present an exalted socialism. He
himself in previous writings, while shadowing forth a social system
based on unselfishness, has carefully deprecated any revolutionary
attempt to hasten the establishment of such a system, and would prefer
that it should be waited for while it quietly and with orderliness
evolves itself out of the present imperfect order of things. Is it not
so evolving itself? Does not the co-operative movement, now steadily
advancing, spring out of the recognition of the fact that mutual welfare
is a far more excellent thing to be attained than the enrichment of the
few at the expense of the many? And if, with regard to the land
question, any readjustment of relations is made, will it not be made in
the light of the same beneficent principle? If, however, the clergy were
to give heed to Mr. Ruskin's words, and at once proceed to the
indiscriminate excommunication of usurers, would they not be initiating
a social revolution, altogether different from that orderly upgrowth of
a better state of things which has commended itself aforetime to Mr.
Ruskin himself? My own impression is that I shall be giving voice to a
wish that will spring up wherever Mr. Ruskin's Letters may be read, if I
say that a clearer, more definite utterance on the usury question would
be welcomed. The clergy everywhere would receive with thankfulness any
hints as to how they might hasten the coming of the day when the Church
of Christ will no longer embrace within her borders the few, with a
useless excess of wealth, and around them the unhappy many, hopelessly,
squalidly destitute; along, too, with a vast number of toiling teachers,
clergy, artists, and literary workers, living mostly on the verge of
pennilessness--men of whose existence Mr. Ruskin has, in earlier
writings, expressed himself as keenly and sympathetically conscious.
But I will not linger on such parts of Mr. Ruskin's Letters as may seem
to display inconsistency, or to need more precision of language before
they can be practically useful. I will proceed to speak of those for
which, as it seems to me, the clergy may unhesitatingly be very
grateful to Mr. Ruskin for laying them before them.
And first, I think we cannot be other than thankful to Mr. Ruskin for
sounding at the outset a note of catholicity. He asks the clergy of the
English Church (let me say he asks us,--he asks you and me), whether we
look upon ourselves as the clergy of a mere insular Church, or as the
clergy of the Church Universal. Is the teaching we are continually
giving utterance to as to the conduct of life in harmony with, or
different from, the teaching of the Christian Churches on the Continent
of Europe? Mr. Ruskin's tone, in asking these questions, is such as
implies that it would be no satisfaction to him to hear from us that we
rejoice in considering ourselves as severed from the clergy of the
Christian Church abroad. Indeed, he goes on to assume that we, with one
consenting voice, admit our fellowship with the rest of
Christendom--that we recognize as our brothers the clergy of the Church
of France, and of the Church of Italy, and of the Church everywhere.
Mr. Ruskin thus does not lend the support of his name to any useless
Protestantism. There are senses in which the whole Christian Church must
ever be a Protestant Church, and in which even individual members may
from time to time raise protesting voices. The Church must ever lift up
her protest against all influences that work in the world for
evil--against whatsoever tends to overthrow the Christian ideals of
individual, family, social, national, and international life. She must
protest against all hindrances, even though they may spring up within
her own borders, which tend to prevent her from putting any beneficent
impress upon human handiwork and upon manifestations of human genius.
She must protest against the very Protestantism in her midst which has
served to paganize art and to demoralize the drama, by banishing both to
an outer region of darkness which Gospel rays cannot be expected to
illumine. She must protest vigorously against the mischievous
Protestantism which impoverishes the intellect and chills the
affections, by causing men to devote the whole energies of their lives
to protesting against systems of thought with which they are very
imperfectly acquainted, and to maintaining an attitude of perpetual
suspicion as to others' aims and motives. Under the influence of such
Protestantism as this, many have been possessed with the assurance that
a vast number of the clergy of Christendom live for no other end than to
conspire against freedom, to disseminate falsities, and to work ruin
amongst human souls. This Protestantism is fast ceasing to have any
power amongst us; still, as it is not quite extinct, it is comforting to
find that Mr. Ruskin does not attribute it to the main body of those
whom he addresses.
To me it seems that an habitual protesting attitude on the part of those
who are called upon to be the teachers of the Church implies that they
have not themselves properly entered the temple of Christian truth. He
to whom Christian doctrine has revealed itself in all its wondrous
harmony cannot do other than devote himself to unfolding to others what
is ever present to his own mind, so that he may aid in building up their
thoughts consistently and symmetrically, and thus help to establish them
firmly in the Christian faith.
We may, then, it seems to me, express our thankfulness that Mr. Ruskin
has spoken, though ever so briefly, a word of encouragement to the
clergy of the English Church amongst whom the thought of a future of
reunion for Christendom has been welcomed. Mr. Ruskin is familiar with
the practical working of the Christian Church in Italy and elsewhere on
the Continent, and seeing, as he has seen, that her influence is exerted
towards securing an orderly and healthy state of social life, he does
not give circulation to the indiscriminate calumnies which were once
wont to be uttered, and which were alike at variance with the truth and
provocative of a mischievous severance of Christians from one another.
But we must, I think, be more especially grateful to Mr. Ruskin for his
calling widespread attention to the great Christian doctrine of the
Fatherhood of God. There is especial need for this being uplifted before
the thoughts of men at the present day, and it is being so uplifted. The
more it is upheld, the more fully will it be discerned. It cannot be
said that the doctrine is not accepted within the English Church. Still,
it has not yet been received in all its fulness. Amongst the
separatists outside the borders of our Church, the doctrine that God is
the Father of all humanity, and the loving Father too, is rejected in
two extreme ways. The set of "believers" who adopt the one extreme view
consider that the Lord's Prayer--so luminous, as Mr. Ruskin reminds us,
with the thought of God's fatherly love--should be used only by the
elect, such as themselves, and that all others have no right to address
God as their Father. The other set of so-called "believers" considers
with a deplorable Pharisaism that they have arrived at such a stage of
perfection as to be beyond the need for using words which require them
to ask every day for forgiveness of their trespasses. Why should they
ask for such, they say, when their trespasses are non-existent? If they
are children of the Father they are not so in the same sense as those
who conscientiously use the prayer addressed to the Father in heaven. I
regret that Mr. Ruskin's facile pen has betrayed him into writing some
words with reference to our Liturgy which bring him momentarily into
sympathy with these self-righteous ones who have no need to confess
that they want more health of soul.
But the doctrine of the loving Fatherhood of God, as revealed to us in
Christ, is one that is unfolding itself more and more clearly to the
Christian world. If it has unfolded itself to us we may aid in its
increased discernment. It is one that involves the acceptance of the
thought that all human life and every sphere of human endeavour are
under Divine patronage. God is in every way our Father. All human
excellences whatsoever exist in their fulness and perfection in Him. As
they are manifested in us and in our brothers and sisters around us,
they are Divine excellences becoming incarnate on the realm of humanity.
Childhood, for instance, as it manifests its sweetness and winsomeness
in Christian homes, is an outcome of the eternal childhood which dwells
in God, and which was manifested supremely to the world in the life of
the Divine Child at Bethlehem and Nazareth.
So that the doctrine of the loving Fatherhood of God has sheltering
beneath it the thought of the divineness of childhood. Clustering with
it are many kindred thoughts. There is the divineness of youth, the
frankness of Christian boyhood, the tender grace of Christian
girlhood,--these are manifestations of the eternal youth abiding in the
Divine Lord of humanity.
I might speak to you in like manner of the divineness of manhood and of
womanhood, and of the divineness of old age. All womanly excellences, as
well as all manly virtues, reside in the Divine One. I might speak to
you of the divineness of wedded life, the divineness of Christian
fatherliness and motherliness. The divineness of the student's life and
of the teacher's life might also be dwelt upon. The divineness of the
ministry of reconciliation, in which ministry all may take part who help
others to separate themselves from sin and selfishness and to enter into
union with God and His life of love,--this I present to you as a
fruitful thought. The divineness of all efforts tending towards the
solace and comforting of suffering human souls,--that too is one of the
beneficent thoughts involved in the great Christian truth that God is
the Father of humanity.
But the same great truth leads us to the discernment of other useful
thoughts. I might speak of them as connected with the divineness of all
toil which has for its object the increase of human knowledge, the
gathering together of the stored-up lessons of the past, the beautifying
of the daily life, the refining and spiritualizing of the daily thoughts
of the great brotherhood and sisterhood. It would thus be quite
justifiable to speak of the divineness of scientific toil, inasmuch as
that has for its aim the unfolding of the thoughts of God, of which all
appearances of the material world are the outcome and manifestation.
Thus too I might speak of the divineness of the work of those who enable
us to see the results of the Divine guidance bestowed on the world in
the ages past. I might speak of the divineness of the work of the artist
who devotes himself to acquiring skill in subtly entangling in the
colours he puts on canvas the sentiment underlying the landscape he
reverently looks at, which to him is a manifestation of a heaven of
beauty unseen by heedless eyes. I might also speak of the divineness of
the labours of the Christian poet, who presents to the world truth in
its feminine and most winning aspects.
When I should have spoken of all these things they could all be summed
up into one phrase--the divineness of Humanity. And this is what I have
faintly attempted to show necessarily springs up for recognition as the
doctrine of the Fatherhood of God presents itself to us in all its
impressiveness.
I must hasten to a close. I have said that Mr. Ruskin in what he asks us
with reference to our relation to the Church in other countries sounds a
note of catholicity. In what I have myself said as to Protestantism I
have urged nothing inconsistent with a thorough loyalty to the principle
of Christian individualism. But individualism in utter revolt against
authority leads only to confusion and to a multiplicity of tyrannies.
Individualism thrives best under the protection of a generous
all-embracing authority. Individualism before taking up the attitude of
revolt should consider that it, by brave patience and a reverent
submissiveness to all higher influences around it, may contribute
beneficently to the authority of the future, and increase the
generousness and catholicity of its sway.
I will further remark that Mr. Ruskin's words as to the Fatherhood of
God are also a catholic utterance. For the Fatherhood of God when
pondered upon helps us to see that no sphere of human effort is beyond
His control; that His house is one of many mansions of thought and
affection and loving toil; that His heavenly kingdom is one including
all domains on which human energies can be directed, over which human
thoughts can roam, on which human love can lavish itself.
_From the Rev._ CANON E. H. M'NEILE, _Liverpool_.
What is the exact question asked in Letter II.?
Is it whether the clergy are or are not teachers of universal science?
If so, we answer, Yes, we are teachers of the science most universal of
all, namely, the knowledge of God, which is eternal life: and of the way
to attain it, which is holiness; and the principles of this science,
which are universal, are not, as in other sciences, discovered by human
research, but are revealed by God.
Does the question imply that there are points of science on which it is
of no consequence what opinions a teacher holds? And if so, does it
further mean that all matters of doctrine, such as are defined in the
Thirty-nine Articles, are of this nature?
If so, I answer that it is only the theories or speculations of
scientific investigators about which variety of opinion is immaterial,
not the essential principles of the science; and that we cannot exclude
all questions of doctrine from among those principles. I do not know
what is meant by holding different opinions on points of science. About
the facts of science there can be no difference of opinion; but there
may be about the bearings, and the inferences to be drawn from them.