Part 1

[Transcriber's Note:

The first part of this volume (September 1879) was produced as Project Gutenberg Ebook #30048. The relevant part of the table of contents has been extracted from that document.

The rest of the Transcriber Notes are at the end of the Book.]

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_The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, Issue 4_

Published December 1879.

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CONTENTS.

DECEMBER, 1879. PAGE The Lord's Prayer and the Church: Letters Addressed to the Clergy. By John Ruskin, D.C.L. 539

India under Lord Lytton. By Lieut.-Colonel R. D. Osborn 553

On the Utility to Flowers of their Beauty. By the Hon. Justice 574

Where are we in Art? By Lady Verney 588

Life in Constantinople Fifty Years Ago. By an Eastern Statesman 601

Miracles, Prayer, and Law. By J. Boyd Kinnear 617

What is Rent? By Professor Bonamy Price 630

Buddhism and Jainism. By Professor Monier Williams 644

Lord Beaconsfield:-- 665

I. Why we Follow Him. By a Tory. II. Why we Disbelieve in Him. By a Whig.

Contemporary Life and Thought in France. By Gabriel Monod 697

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THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH.

LETTERS ADDRESSED BY JOHN RUSKIN, D.C.L.,

TO THE CLERGY.

The following letters, which are still receiving the careful consideration of many of my brother clergy, are, at the suggestion of the Editor, now printed in the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, with the object of eliciting a further and wider expression of opinion. In addition to the subjoined brief Introductory Address, I desire here to say that every reader of these remarkable letters should remember that they have proceeded from the pen of a very eminent layman, who has not had the advantage, or disadvantage, of any special theological training; but yet whose extensive studies in Art have not prevented him from fully recognizing, and boldly avowing, his belief that religion is everybody's business, and _his_ not less than another's. The draught may be a bitter one for some of us; but it is a salutary medicine, and we ought not to shrink from swallowing it.

I shall be glad to receive such expressions of opinion as I may be favoured with from the thoughtful readers of the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. Those comments or replies, along with the original letters, and an essay or commentary from myself as editor, will be published by Messrs. Strahan & Co., and appear early in the spring; the volume being closed by a reply, or Epilogue, from Mr. Ruskin himself.

F. A. MALLESON, M.A.

The Vicarage, Broughton-in-Furness.

INTRODUCTION.

The first reading of the Letters to the Furness Clerical Society was prefaced with the following remarks:--

A few words by way of introduction will be absolutely necessary before I proceed to read Mr. Ruskin's letters. They originated simply in a proposal of mine, which met with so ready and willing a response, that it almost seemed like a simultaneous thought. They are addressed nominally to myself, as representing the body of clergy whose secretary I have the honour to be; they are, in fact, therefore addressed to this Society primarily. But in the course of the next month or two they will also be read to two other Clerical Societies,--the Ormskirk and the Brighton (junior),--who have acceded to my proposals with much kindness, and in the first case have invited me of their own accord. I have undertaken, to the best of my ability, to arrange and set down the various expressions of opinion, which will be freely uttered. In so limited a time, many who may have much to say that would be really valuable will find no time to-day to deliver it. Of these brethren, I beg that they will do me the favour to express their views at their leisure, in writing. The original letters, the discussions, the letters which may be suggested, and a few comments of the Editor's, will be published in a volume which will appear, I trust, in the beginning of the next year.

I will now, if you please, undertake the somewhat dangerous responsibility of avowing my own impressions of the letters I am about to read to you. I own that I believe I see in these papers the development of a principle of the deepest interest and importance,--namely, the application of the highest and loftiest standard in the interpretation of the Gospel message _to_ ourselves as clergymen, and _from_ ourselves to our congregations. We have plenty elsewhere of doctrine and dogma, and undefinable shades of theological opinion. Let us turn at last to practical questions presented for our consideration by an eminent layman whose field of work lies quite as much in religion and ethics, as it does, reaching to so splendid an eminence, in Art. A man is wanted to show to both clergy and laity something of the full force and meaning of Gospel teaching. Many there are, and I am of this number, whose cry is "_Exoriare aliquis_."

I ask you, if possible, to do in an hour what I have been for the last two months trying to do, to divest myself of old forms of thought, to cast off self-indulgent views of our duty as ministers of religion, to lift ourselves out of those grooves in which we are apt to run so smoothly and so complacently, persuading ourselves that all is well just as it is, and to endeavour to strike into a sterner, harder path, beset with difficulties, but still the path of duty. These papers will demand a close, a patient, and in some places, a few will think, an indulgent consideration; but as a whole, the standard taken is, as I firmly believe, speaking only for myself, lofty and Christian, to the extent of an almost ideal perfection. If we do go forward straight in the direction which Mr. Ruskin points out, I know we shall come, sooner or later, to a chasm right across our path. Some of us, I hope, will undauntedly cross it. Let each judge for himself, [Greek: tô telei pistin pherôn].

LETTERS.

I.

BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, _20th June, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I could not at once answer your important letter: for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing to address such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in answering to any call relating to matters respecting which my feelings have been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for me to be of service therein. My health--or want of it--now utterly forbids my engagement in any duty involving excitement or acute intellectual effort; but I think, before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to write one or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more or less completing, some passages already printed in _Fors_ and elsewhere, which might, on your reading any portions you thought available, become matter of discussion during the meeting at some leisure time, after its own main purposes had been answered.

At all events, I will think over what I should like, and be able, to represent to such a meeting, and only beg you not to think me insensible of the honour done me by your wish, and of the gravity of the trust reposed in me.

Ever most faithfully yours,

J. RUSKIN.

THE REV. F. A. MALLESON.

II.

BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _23rd June, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Walking, and talking, are now alike impossible to me;[1] my strength is gone for both; nor do I believe talking on such matters to be of the least use except to promote, between sensible people, kindly feeling and knowledge of each other's personal characters. I have every trust in _your_ kindness and truth; nor do I fear being myself misunderstood by you; what I may be able to put into written form, so as to admit of being laid before your friends in council, must be set down without any question of personal feeling--as simply as a mathematical question or demonstration.

The first exact question which it seems to me such an assembly may he earnestly called upon by laymen to solve, is surely axiomatic: the definition of themselves as a body, and of their business as such.

Namely: as clergymen of the Church of England, do they consider themselves to be so called merely as the attached servants of a particular state? Do they, in their quality of guides, hold a position similar to that of the guides of Chamouni or Grindelwald, who, being a numbered body of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to those several villages, have nevertheless no Chamounist or Grindelwaldist opinions on the subject of Alpine geography or glacier walking: but are prepared to put into practice a common and universal science of Locality and Athletics, founded on sure survey and successful practice? Are the clergymen of the Ecclesia of England thus simply the attached and salaried guides of England and the English, in the way, known of all good men, that leadeth unto life?--or are they, on the contrary, a body of men holding, or in any legal manner required, or compelled to hold, opinions on the subject--say, of the height of the Celestial Mountains, the crevasses which go down quickest to the pit, and other cognate points of science--differing from, or even contrary to, the tenets of the guides of the Church of France, the Church of Italy, and other Christian countries?

Is not this the first of all questions which a Clerical Council has to answer in open terms?

Ever affectionately yours,

J. RUSKIN.

[Footnote 1: In answer to the proposal of discussing the subject during a mountain walk.]

III.

BRANTWOOD, _6th July_.

My first letter contained a Layman's plea for a clear answer to the question, "What is a clergyman of the Church of England?" Supposing the answer to this first to be, that the clergy of the Church of England are teachers, not of the Gospel to England, but of the Gospel to all nations; and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of the Gospel of Augustine, but of the Gospel of Christ,--then the Layman's second question would be:

Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it?--and, if so, would it not be, in a quite primal sense, desirable that it should be so, rather than left to be gathered out of Thirty-nine Articles, written by no means in clear English, and referring, for further explanation of exactly the most important point in the whole tenour of their teaching,[1] to a "Homily of Justification,"[2] which is not generally in the possession, or even probably within the comprehension, of simple persons?

Ever faithfully yours,

J. RUSKIN.

[Footnote 1: Art xi.]

[Footnote 2: Homily xi. of the Second Table.]

IV.

BRANTWOOD, _8th July_.

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 at starting. 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: pasê tê 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 ethnê]," 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.

THE REV. F. A. MALLESON.

V.

BRANTWOOD, _10th July_.

My meaning, in saying that the Lord's Prayer might be made a foundation of Gospel-teaching, was not that it contained all that Christian ministers have to teach; but that it contains what all Christians are agreed upon as first to be taught; and that no good parish-working pastor in any district of the world but would be glad to take his part in making it clear and living to his congregation.

And the first clause of it, of course rightly explained, gives us the ground of what is surely a mighty part of the Gospel--its "first and great commandment," namely, that we have a Father whom we _can_ love, and are required to love, and to desire to be with Him in Heaven, wherever that may be.

And to declare that we have such a loving Father, whose mercy is over _all_ His works, and whose will and law is so lovely and lovable that it is sweeter than honey, and more precious than gold, to those who can "taste" and "see" that the Lord is Good--this, surely, is a most pleasant and glorious good message and _spell_ to bring to men--as distinguished from the evil message and accursed spell that Satan has brought to the nations of the world instead of it, that they have no Father, but only "a consuming fire" ready to devour them, unless they are delivered from its raging flame by some scheme of pardon for all, for which they are to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the Son.

Supposing this first article of the true Gospel agreed to, how would the blessing that closes the epistles of that Gospel become intelligible and living, instead of dark and dead: "The grace of Christ, and the _love_ of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost,"--the most _tender_ word being that used of the Father?

VI.

BRANTWOOD, _12th July, 1879_.

I wonder how many, even of those who honestly and attentively join in our Church services, attach any distinct idea to the second clause of the Lord's Prayer, the _first petition_ of it, the first thing that they are ordered by Christ to seek of their Father?

Am I unjust in thinking that most of them have little more notion on the matter than that God has forbidden "bad language," and wishes them to pray that everybody may be respectful to Him?

Is it any otherwise with the Third Commandment? Do not most look on it merely in the light of the Statute of Swearing? and read the words "will not hold him guiltless" merely as a passionless intimation that however carelessly a man may let out a round oath, there really is something wrong in it?

On the other hand, can anything be more tremendous than the words themselves--double-negatived:

"[Greek: ou gar mê katharisêi ... kyrios]"?

For _other_ sins there is washing;--for this, none! the seventh verse, Ex. xx., in the Septuagint, marking the real power rather than the English, which (I suppose) is literal to the Hebrew.

To my layman's mind, of practical needs in the present state of the Church, nothing is so immediate as that of explaining to the congregation the meaning of being gathered in His name, and having Him in the midst of them; as, on the other hand, of being gathered in blasphemy of His name, and having the devil in the midst of them--presiding over the prayers which have become an abomination.

For the entire body of the texts in the Gospel against hypocrisy are one and all nothing but the expansion of the threatening that closes the Third Commandment. For as "the name whereby He shall be called is the Lord our Righteousness,"--so the taking that name in vain is the sum of "the deceivableness of _un_righteousness in them that perish."

Without dwelling on the possibility--which I do not myself, however, for a moment doubt--of an honest clergyman's being able actually to prevent the entrance among his congregation of persons leading openly wicked lives, could any subject be more vital to the purposes of your meetings than the difference between the present and the probable state of the Christian Church which would result, were it more the effort of zealous parish priests, instead of getting wicked _poor_ people to _come_ to church, to get wicked rich ones to stay out of it?

Lest, in any discussion of such question, it might be, as it too often is, alleged that "the Lord looketh upon the heart," &c., let me be permitted to say--with as much positiveness as may express my deepest conviction--that, while indeed it is the Lord's business to look upon the heart, it is the pastor's to look upon the hands and the lips; and that the foulest oaths of the thief and the street-walker are, in the ears of God, sinless as the hawk's cry, or the gnat's murmur, compared to the responses, in the Church service, on the lips of the usurer and the adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those of the outcast ones whom they have made their victims.

It is for the meeting of clergymen themselves--not for a layman addressing them--to ask further, how much the name of God may be taken in vain, and profaned instead of hallowed--_in_ the pulpit, as well as under it.

Ever affectionately yours,

J. RUSKIN.

VII.

BRANTWOOD, _14th July, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Sincere thanks for both your letters and the proofs sent. Your comment and conducting link, when needed, will be of the greatest help and value, I am well assured, suggesting what you know will be the probable feeling of your hearers, and the point that will come into question.

Yes, certainly, that "His" in the fourth line[1] was meant to imply that eternal presence of Christ; as in another passage,[2] referring to the Creation, "when His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary," but in so far as we dwell on that truth, "Hast thou seen _Me_, Philip, and not the Father?" we are not teaching the people what is specially the Gospel of _Christ_ as having a distinct function--namely, to _serve_ the Father, and do the Father's will. And in all His human relations to us, and commands to us, it is as the Son of Man, not as the "power of God and wisdom of God," that He acts and speaks. Not as the Power; for _He_ must pray, like one of us. Not as the Wisdom; for He must not know "if it be possible" His prayer should be heard.

And in what I want to say of the third clause of His prayer (_His_, not merely as His ordering, but His using), it is especially this comparison between _His_ kingdom, and His Father's, that I want to see the disciples guarded against. I believe very few, even of the most earnest, using that petition, realize that it is the Father's--not the Son's--kingdom, that they pray may come,--although the whole prayer is foundational on that fact: "_For_ THINE is the kingdom, the power, and the glory." And I fancy that the mind of the most faithful Christians is quite led away from its proper hope, by dwelling on the reign--or the coming again--of Christ; which, indeed, they are to look for, and _watch_ for, but not to pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greater kingdom to which He, risen and having all His enemies under His feet, is to surrender _His_, "that God may be All in All."

And, though the greatest, it is that everlasting kingdom which the poorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten Christ's coming. "Of the day and the hour, knoweth none." But the kingdom of God is as a grain of mustard-seed:--we can sow of it; it is as a foam-globe of leaven:--we can mingle it; and its glory and its joy are that even the birds of the air can lodge in the branches thereof.

Forgive me for getting back to my sparrows; but truly, in the present state of England, the fowls of the air are the only creatures, tormented and murdered as they are, that yet have here and there nests, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And it would be well if many of us, in reading that text, "The kingdom of God is NOT meat and drink," had even got so far as to the understanding that it was at least _as much_, and that until we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to inspire the unhappy.

Ever affectionately yours,

J. RUSKIN.

I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of Christ you have sent me, in a private letter. I may say at once that I am sure it will do much good, and will be upright and intelligible, which how few religious writings are!

[Footnote 1: "Modern Painters."]

[Footnote 2: Referring to the closing sentence of the third paragraph of the fifth letter, which _seemed_ to express what I felt could not be Mr. Ruskin's full meaning, I pointed out to him the following sentence in "Modern Painters:"--

"When, in the desert, Jesus was girding Himself for the work of life, angels of life came and ministered unto Him; now, in the fair world, when He is girding Himself for the work of death, the ministrants come to Him from the grave; but from the grave conquered. One from the tomb under Abarim, which _His_ own hand had sealed long ago; the other from the rest which He had entered without seeing corruption."

On this I made a remark somewhat to the following effect: that I felt sure Mr. Ruskin regarded the loving work of the Father and of the Son to be _equal_ in the forgiveness of sins and redemption of mankind; that what is done by the Father is in reality done also by the Son; and that it is by a mere accommodation to human infirmity of understanding that the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed to us in language, inadequate indeed to convey divine truths, but still the only language possible; and I asked whether some such feeling was not present in his mind when he used the pronoun "His," in the above passage from "Modern Painters" of the Son, where it would be usually understood of the Father; and as a corollary, whether, in the letter, he does not himself fully recognize the fact of the redemption of the world by the loving self-sacrifice of the Son in entire concurrence with the equally loving will of the Father. This, as well as I can recollect, is the origin of the passage in the second paragraph in the seventh letter.--_Editor of Letters._]

VIII.

BRANTWOOD, _9th August, 1879_.

I was reading the second chapter of Malachi this morning by chance, and wondering how many clergymen ever read it, and took to heart the "commandment for _them_."

For they are always ready enough to call themselves priests (though they know themselves to be nothing of the sort) whenever there is any dignity to be got out of the title; but, whenever there is any good, hot scolding or unpleasant advice given them by the prophets, in that self-assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as ever Dionysus his lion-skin, when he finds the character of Herakles inconvenient.