Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 14

I am so puzzled. I can scarcely think of anything else till you tell me what you mean in the bit about being "called late."

Have you done no work in the vineyard 'yet' then?

7.

_August 2nd, 1879._

I am still simply speechless with astonishment at you. It is no question of your right to the best I can say; it is all at your command. But for the present my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. I can only tell you with all the strength I have to read and understand and believe 2 Esdras iv. 2, 20, 21.[24]

[24] Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the most High? Then answered he me, and said, Thou hast given a right judgment, but why judgest thou not thyself also. For like as the ground is given unto the wood, and the sea to his floods: even so they that dwell upon the earth may understand nothing, but that which is upon the earth: and he only that dwelleth above the heavens, may understand the things that are above the height of the heavens.

8.

_August 4th, 1879._

It is just because you undertook the task so _happily_, that I should have thought you unfit to write the life of a Man of Sorrows, even had he been a Man only. But your last letter, remember, claims inspiration for your guide, and recognizes a personal call at sixty, as if the Call to the ministry had been none, and the receiving the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands an empty ceremony.

In writing the life of a paris.h.i.+oner and in remitting or retaining their sins you would in my conception have been fulfilling your appointed work. But I cannot conceive the claim to be a fit Evangelist without more proof of miraculous appointment than you are conscious of. I know you to be conscientious, yes--but I think the judicial doom of this country is to have conscience alike of its Priests and Prophets _hardened_. Why should any letter of mine make you anxious if you had indeed conscience of inspiration?

Ever affectionately yours, J. R.

9.

_August 7th._

I hope to be able soon now to resume the series of letters; but it seems to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more respecting the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands contain questions enough, if seriously entertained, to occupy twenty meetings; and I could only hope that some one of them might be carefully taken up by your friends. I think, however, in case of the clerical feeling being too strong, that I must ask you, if you print letters at all, to print them without omission. And if you do not print them, to return them to me for my own expansion and arrangement.

Ever affectionately yours, J. R.

10.

_August 9th._

I have got to work on the letters again; it would make me nervous to think of all these plans of yours. Suppose you leave all that till you see what the first debate comes to?[25] And in the meantime I'll finish as best I can.

[25] My clerical friends and brethren must not be displeased with me if I here mention the fact that at the meeting of twenty-three clergy where I _proposed_ to read Mr. Ruskin's letters to them, I was only authorized to do so by a majority of two. I can scarcely describe the dismay and consternation with which the letters themselves were received,--though of course not universally, in another meeting of the same number.

11.

_September 2nd._

That there are only a hundred copies in that form,[26] is just a reason why the book should be in your library, where it will be enjoyed and useful; and not in mine, where it would not be opened once in a twelvemonth. It is one of the advantages of a small house (and it has many) that one is compelled to consider of all one's books whether they are in use or not.

[26] Grosart, "Poems of Christopher Harvey."

I yesterday ordered a 'Fors' to be sent you containing in its close the most important piece of a religious character in the book--this I hope you will also allow to stay on your shelves. The two that I sent with this note contain so much that is saucy that I only send them in case you want to look at the challenge referred to in the Letters to the Bishop of Manchester, see October, 1877, pp. 322, 323, and January 1875, p. 11. You can keep as long as you like, but please take care of them, as my index is not yet done. The next letter will come before the week end, but it's a difficult one.

12.

THE VICARAGE, BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS, _September 4th, 1879_.

MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--These parish engagements having been discharged which have taken up my time very closely since I came back from Brighton, I am returning to your letters, and I think you would like to know what I am doing. I am copying them down, first, as I can read them aloud better in my own handwriting, and secondly, because I shall not place the originals in the printer's hands.

Then many thoughts arise in my mind as I re-peruse them, and I must needs (and I think I am allowed) give expression to my thoughts. Hence each letter is followed by my own comments or reflections upon it. But this need not make you feel nervous. On the whole there is much agreement between your modes of thought on religious subjects and my own.

If this is thought a piece of cool a.s.surance, I may reply in the words or sense of Euclid, That similar triangles may have the most various areas. I am not equal to you, but I claim to be similar. These comments I sometimes think I ought to show to you before publication; but perhaps you will agree with me that if I am fit to be trusted at all, I had better be left unconstrained. I shall certainly come to you first, if I find myself seriously at variance with you, which has not happened yet as far as the first clause of the Lord's Prayer. Then it is likely that I shall read the letters before two or three Clerical Societies,[27]

including my own, the Furness.

[27] At Liverpool and Brighton.

The opinions delivered by those clergy it will be my duty, and I hope it will be my pleasure, to collect and to record. I propose also to invite the clergy who have not time or opportunity to speak in the meeting to write to me, and I will use my best judgment in selecting from their correspondence all that seems worth preserving.

I am very sensible that this is a most delicate and responsible task that is laid upon me, and I wonder to find myself so engaged. It will need tact, discretion, and kindness of heart, and I trust I may be endued with the necessary qualifications to a much larger extent than I think I naturally possess.

I find no small comfort at the foot of the first page of the Preface to "Sesame and Lilies." There I feel I am at one with you.

Ever affectionately yours, F. A. MALLESON.

13.