LETTER X

Whatever justice there may be (and no doubt there is much) in Mr. Ruskin's accusations against us clergy, he is surely under an entire misapprehension in the charge which he here makes against our Liturgy.

Our Prayer Book is doubtless constructed for the use of believing Christians, and is not fitted for the impenitent; but its adaptation to the needs of the repentant publican and of the advanced Christian is most wonderful. And that a form of prayer may be so adapted is surely proved by the Lord's Prayer itself, which Mr. Ruskin says is the _first_ thing to be taught to all, and which, with all his practice in thinking, he feels that he cannot adequately expound.

Surely the repetition of a confession of unholiness casts no slur upon the efficacy of our prayers for holiness when we recognize that holiness is progressive, and that spiritual growth may express itself not merely in new words, but in a heartier utterance of the old ones. As to the particular expression, "there is no health in us," it needs either the explanation of St. Paul--"I know that in me, _that is, in my flesh_, dwelleth no good thing,"--or else to be understood according to the old meaning of "health," viz., "_saving health_," _salvation_, _deliverance_ (Psalm cxix. 123, Prayer Book; Isa. lviii. 8; Jer. viii. 15).

It needs further to be remarked that repentance is not only a single definite act, but a state of mind.

I think that underlying all these comments of Mr. Ruskin on the Lord's Prayer is a failure to recognize the truth of man's fall.

Human nature is a ruin, not to be restored by a rearrangement of its fragments. God has provided a remedy, by sending His Son to be the foundation of a new spiritual building; and every man who is to be built upon that foundation must himself become a new creature by the operation of the Holy Ghost. All efforts to improve humanity in the mass, without the renewal of each separate soul, must fail; and no doubt the clergy often fall into this mistake.

The Lord's Prayer is not the prayer of all mankind as they are by nature. It is a prayer to the possession of which they are brought by regeneration, and to the enjoyment by conversion.

E. H. M'NEILE.

_From the Rev._ P. T. OUVRY.

On the meaning of usury, I would add a few words. I start with this proposition. There is nothing contrary to the will of God for one free man to buy from another free man anything he wants. I have two houses,--one I live in, one I let. My tenant pays the market rent of houses to me, and so both parties are benefited. I have two thousand pounds. I have no capacity, or opportunity, or desire to use more than one thousand pounds in trade on my own account. My neighbour has energy and activity to use more money than he has in trade. He gladly offers me five per cent. for my spare thousand pounds. I willingly lend it on those terms. He makes ten per cent. by using it. He gives me five pounds and has five pounds for himself. If this be usury, it is lawful and right.

A number of small cultivators of land have no capital. A money-lender supplies what they require on condition that they sell their crops to him at a price which he is able to fix. From the circumstances of the case the money-lender makes an enormous profit. The cultivator has barely the necessaries of life. This is usury, in the bad sense of the term, but is more correctly called oppression or extortion.

Again, a man lends money to ignorant inexperienced youths, on promise of repayment when they come of age. This, too, is oppression or extortion.

Similar oppression is witnessed when bad houses are let to poor people at high rents.

It is not, then, that usury, in the sense of oppression or extortion, is inherent in money-lending; but it belongs equally to every transaction between man and man, where any unrighteous dealing is practised.

P. T. OUVRY.

GRANGE-OVER-SANDS, _October 1st, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I protested strongly yesterday against our remarks, made on the spur of the moment, being printed and submitted to Mr. Ruskin's criticism, and what I said then I feel as strongly still.

But I have no objection to send, as a comment on his Letters, a volume of sermons which I published last year, because I think that, in that upon the hallowing of God's name, I have not taken the restricted view which Mr. Ruskin accused the clergy of taking, and I think also that (except in the sermon upon the doctrine of the Trinity, which was written before the others, and is tinged with the prejudices of early training), I have set forth God the Father as a Being of infinite, tender, fatherly love.

So far as snails may follow in the footsteps of greyhounds, and bats look in the same direction as eagles, I think some of us clergymen are getting our feet and our eyes into the same track as Mr. Ruskin's.

It seems to me that all of us who think upon religious matters, laity or clergy, whether men of genius or commonplace people, are feeling our way at present to something better and truer. Men like Mr. Ruskin, like steamships, dart on to their destination; and feebler minds, like sailing vessels, are a good deal at the mercy of the _popularis aura_ and the winds of doctrine, but both are on their way to the same point.

I send the volume by the same post as this letter.

Yours very faithfully, H. R. S.

_From the Rev._ A. G. K. SIMPSON, _Brighton_.

We are convinced that the love of God is the originating cause of all His dealings with mankind, and are glad to meet him on the broad platform of "Our Father which art in heaven;" only premising that it is a platform not new to us, but on which we have long taken our stand.

But beyond these somewhat general statements of our faith, I doubt whether it would be possible to put Divine truth into such plain words as would meet with general acceptance. In proportion to the _minuteness_ would be the _disagreement_. To take one great truth (perhaps the greatest of all), would it be possible to put forth a plain and simple statement, such as all, or the majority, would receive, of the Atonement? Such a mind as Mr. Ruskin's would not be content with the forensic view more popular some years ago than now. Wiser, it seems to me, it is to accept some such teaching as that of Coleridge in "Aids to Reflection." "The mysterious act, the operative cause," he says, "is transcendent." "_Factum est_," and beyond the information contained in the enunciation of the fact, it can be characterized only by its consequences. It is these consequences which (according to Coleridge) are illustrated by the four metaphors:--

1. Sin-offering or expiation.

2. Reconciliation.

3. Redemption.

4. Payment of a debt.

Now, would not a plain, a simple statement, be apt to press the metaphor too far, and attempt to put into words one aspect of the truth as though it were the whole? Such a reverent mind as Bishop Butler's reproved the curiosity which sought to find out the manner of the atonement. "I do not find," he said, "that it is declared in the Scriptures." And yet the atonement is only _one_, though perhaps the _chief_, of the many points of which a true and simple statement must take cognizance. It would be comparatively easy for the private clergyman to put into words his thoughts on this subject or that, but then he would be continually liable to have it urged against him that he had not sufficiently considered some given point--had not walked round it, and seen it in all its bearings; that his view was inadequate and incomplete; and, being fallible and human, some of the objections would doubtless be true, and the simple and plain statement be, in that respect at least, misguiding.

_From the Rev._ G. W. WALL, _Bickerstaffe_.