Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 6

Will this alone "mend the world, forsooth"? Now the extreme men of one particular school in the English Church do really preach little else beside this. When they are entreated to preach upon good works, too, and unfold a little of their value and beauty,--if they have any at all,--the answer is always to the effect, "Oh, of course; faith in Christ must of necessity beget the love of good works. These are the signs of that. Preach Christ crucified, and all the rest will be sure to follow." And this is what is exclusively called "preaching the Gospel."

The preacher who teaches us to love our enemies, to live pure lives, to be honourable to all men and women, to bring up our families in the truth, is frowned upon as a "legal preacher." As a clergyman myself, I am not afraid of saying that I look upon this so-called Gospel-preaching as fraught with not a little of danger. G.o.d knows, wicked sinners are found in every congregation and cla.s.s of men, kneeling to pray, and singing praises, exactly like good men. Now I can hardly conceive a style and matter of preaching more calculated to excuse and palliate, and almost encourage sin, than this narrow and exclusive so-called Gospel-preaching. Neither Christ nor His apostles taught thus at all.

The whole Sermon on the Mount is moral in the highest and purest sense.

Every epistle has its moral or _legal_ side. "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!" and I cannot be preaching the Gospel unless, along with the great proclamation, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father," I also do my utmost to teach "what the will of the Lord is"

concerning a pure, holy, and blameless life, full of active, good works, done in deep humility and self-abas.e.m.e.nt; because Christ loved me and died for me, and asks me, in love to Him, to walk in His steps.

ON LETTER IX

I fancy I can still hear the murmur of angry dissent pa.s.s round as I read to my reverend brethren this indignant plea for a higher interpretation of the pet.i.tion for daily bread than that which pa.s.ses current with the unthinking, self-indulgent world. Nevertheless, this manifestation of feeling was not general, and I thoroughly agree with Mr. Ruskin that the world has, from the first, used this prayer thoughtlessly and blasphemously; and probably will continue to do so to the end, when the thoughts and imaginations of all men's hearts shall be revealed, and no more disguises shall be possible; when the masked hypocrite's smile shall be torn from him and reveal the covetousness that breeds in his heart to its core; when the honourable man shall no longer be confounded with thieves, nor the usurer and extortioner be courted and bowed to like an honest man.

The veil that hid the true Christ, as Mr. Ruskin has well remarked, was removed in the breaking of bread with the disciples at Emmaus. As the Master, so the true disciples. They too may be known both by the spiritual breaking of the Bread of Life in the Holy Communion (though the canting hypocrite too may be found polluting that holy rite); but more especially in the union of the sacred ordinance with obedience to the scarcely less sacred command of Christian love and charity to the poor. There may be the empty profession, but there will be none of the reality of the religion of the Gospel, unless we are partakers of the bread broken at the Lord's Table, or unless we eat the bread earned by the honest labour of our hands or of our brains, or share some of our bread with those, the Lord's brethren, whom He has left for us to care for in His name. The absence of either of these three essential conditions just lays us open to the charge of flaunting before the world a false and spurious Christianity. In the plain words of our friend, our bread not being fairly got or fairly used, is stolen bread.

But I would willingly believe that it is only by a strong figure of speech that we clergy are here again emphatically called upon to act the part of inquisitors by pointedly demanding of every member of our flock a precise account of the manner in which he earns his livelihood. Still, if the answer was not a surprised and indignant stare, I believe the great ma.s.s of men would probably be able to give an answer which should abundantly satisfy themselves and us, until Mr. Ruskin threw his own light upon the answer and demonstrated that the notions of modern civilized society are not in accordance with the highest teaching.

According to our ideas, the artisan, the tradesman, the merchant, the members of the learned and the military and naval professions, all those engaged in the various departments of government work, from the cabinet minister down to the last office clerk,--all these use the labour of body or of mind, and in return receive the necessaries or the luxuries of life for themselves and their households. Men who are, if they please, exempt altogether from such labour, as large landed proprietors, are certainly under a temptation to lead a life of ease and leisure. But it is very seldom that we are offended with the sight of a landlord so unmindful of social duties as to take no personal active interest in the welfare and conduct of his tenants, or forgetful of the responsibilities to his country imposed upon him by his rank and position.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Ruskin does not in all solemn seriousness really expect that after a fair examination of the modes of life of all these people, "an entirely new view of life and its sacraments will open upon us and them." Is it indeed a fact that "the great ma.s.s of men calling themselves Christians do actually live by robbing the poor of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever"? Mr. Ruskin is always terribly in earnest in whatever he says, and we must look for an explanation of this sentence in the very decided views he holds upon interest of money, which he calls usury.

Mr. Ruskin cla.s.ses Usury and Interest together. Here are some of his strong words upon this subject: "There is absolutely no debate possible as to what usury is, any more than what adultery is. The Church has only been polluted by indulgence in it since the 16th century. Usury is any kind whatever of interest on loan, and it is the essential modern force of Satan." This was written September 9th of this year. In "Fors Clavigera," Letter lx.x.xii., p. 323, he challenged the Bishop of Manchester to answer him the question, whether he considered "usury to be a work of the Lord"?[16] In the same letter, to place his heavy denunciation against the wickedness of usury in the best possible company, he pleads: "Plato's scheme was impossible even in his own day,--as Bacon's New Atlantis in _his_ day,--as Calvin's reform in _his_ day,--as Goethe's Academe in his; but of the good there was in all these men, the world gathered what it could find of evil."

[16] See _Contemporary Review_, February 1880.

Let us look a little closer into this matter. It is not because a man with fearless frankness b.r.e.a.s.t.s the full torrent of popular persuasion and universal practice that he is to be thrust aside as a fanatic, with hard words and unfeeling sneers concerning his sanity. Here, again, I avow my persuasion that Mr. Ruskin is, in one sense, too far in advance, and, in another, too far in the rear of the time; and while I attempt an explanatory justification of the modern practice, I admit that it is only "for the hardness of our hearts" and because the golden age is still far off.

The Mosaic law was severe against usury and increase, forbidding it under heavy threatenings among the faithful Israelites, but allowing it in lending to strangers. "If thy brother be waxen poor, then thou shalt relieve him ... take thou no usury of him, or increase" (Lev. xxv. 35, 36). "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. _Unto a stranger_ thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury" (Deut. xxiii. 19, 20). "Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? ... He that putteth not out his money to usury" (Psalm xv. 1, 5. See Ezek. xviii. 7, etc.) And to come to the Christian law, we have the mild general principle: "If ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.... Lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great" (Luke vi. 34, 35).

So far the Law of Moses and the Gospel.

But our Lord, in the Parable of the Talents, appears to actually sanction the practice of loans upon interest: "Thou oughtest, therefore, to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury" (Matt. xxv. 27). The preceding verse, the 26th, may well be understood to be a question--Didst thou indeed think so? It does not even indirectly attribute hardness and oppression to our Lord.[17] I am quite aware that it may be replied that this is an instance of those strong audacious metaphors, where the fact used by way of ill.u.s.tration is instinctively overleaped by the mind of the hearer to arrive at the lesson which it marks and emphasizes; as when the Lord is represented as an unjust judge, or Paul speaks of grafting the wild olive branch upon the good, or James refers to the rust and canker upon gold and silver, or Milton speaks of certain bishops as "blind mouths."[18] But in all these cases, the hyperbole is manifest; it is an untruth or a disguise, which not only does not deceive, but teaches a great truth. Our Lord's reference to money-lenders or exchangers appears to lend an indirect sanction to a familiar practice.

[17] The owners of five talents and of two talents are commended for making cent. per cent. of their money; but the man who hid away his one talent, as French peasants do, and brought it to his Lord untouched and undiminished, received a severe rebuke.

[18] Lycidas. See "Sesame and Lilies," p. 27.

The Law of Moses, therefore, rebuking the practice of lending for increase among brethren and encouraging it in dealing with strangers, combined with the well-known avarice of the Jews to make them money-lenders on a large scale, and at high rates of interest, to the prodigals and spendthrifts, the bankrupt barons and needy sovereigns of the middle ages. Money was rarely lent for commercial purposes, and to advance the real prosperity of the borrower. It was generally to stave off want for the time; and princ.i.p.al and interest, when pay-day came, had generally to be found in the pastures or strongholds of the enemy.

High interest was charged, on account of the extraordinary precariousness of what was called the security. Grinding and grasping undoubtedly the money-lenders would be, from the hardship of their case.

Reckless extravagance and lavish profusion were, in those non-commercial ages, highly applauded. The spendthrift and the prodigal was the favourite of the mult.i.tude; the rich money-lender was hated and abused, while his money-bags were sought after with all the eagerness of hard-driving poverty. They reviled the careful and economical Israelite; they looked with horror upon his vast acc.u.mulations of capital, and never remembered to thank him for the safety they owed to him from the violent hands of their own soldiers and retainers.

All this went on until the sixteenth or seventeenth century. I have before me a very curious old book, lent to me by Mr. Ruskin, ent.i.tled, "The English Usurer: or, Usury Condemned by the most learned and famous Divines of the Church of England. Collected by John Blaxton, Preacher of G.o.d's Word at Osmington, in Dorsetshire, 1634."

The language throughout the book is of extreme violence against all manner of usury. The compiler gives a collection of the most emphatic testimonies of the greatest preachers of the day against this "detestable vice." Bishop Jewell calls it "a most filthy trade, a trade which G.o.d detesteth, a trade which is the very overthrow of all Christian love." There is, it must be admitted, no sort of argument attempted in the long extract from Bishop Jewell's sermon to demonstrate the wickedness of the practice against which he launches his fierce invectives, but he certainly brings his sermon to a conclusion with a threat of extreme measures "if they continue therein. I will open their shame and denounce excommunication against them, and publish their names in this place before you all, that you may know them, and abhor them as the plagues and monsters of this world; that if they be past all fear of G.o.d, they may yet repent and amend for worldly shame."

This was Bishop Jewell preaching in the middle of the 16th century; and such were the strong terms very generally employed by good and thoughtful men at that day. Bacon (Essay 41) says that one of the objections against usury is that "it is against nature for money to beget money!" Antonio, in "The Merchant of Venice," asks:

"When did friendship take A _breed_ of barren metal of his friend?"

And his practice was "neither to lend nor borrow by taking nor giving of excess," which brought upon him the malice and vindictiveness of the Jew--

"that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice."

Philip, in Tennyson's "Brook "--a simple man in later times--

"Could not understand how money breeds, Thought it a dead thing."

But there were men, too, who saw that the taking of moderate interest was a blameless act. Calvin was a contemporary of Bishop Jewell, and his mind exhibits a curious mixture of feelings upon the subject. Blaxton triumphantly places a sentence from Calvin's "Epistola de Usura" as a battle-flag in his t.i.tle-page:--

"In republica bene const.i.tuta nemo faenerator tolerabilis est; sed omnino debet e consortio hominum rejici." "An usurer is not tolerable in a well-established Commonwealth, but utterly to be rejected out of the company of men." So again, in his Commentary on Deuteronomy. But again, in a pa.s.sage quoted from the same author, without reference, in Dugald Stewart's Preliminary Dissertation (Encyd. Brit.) we come across a different view.

"'Money begets not money!'--What does the sea beget? What the house for which I receive rent? Is silver brought forth from the walls and the roof? But that is produced from land, and that is drawn forth from the sea, which shall produce money; and the convenience of a house is paid for with a stipulated sum. Now if better profit can be derived from the letting out of money than by the letting of an estate, shall a profit be made by letting perhaps some barren land to a farmer, and shall it not be allowed to him who lends a sum of money? He who gets an estate by purchase, shall he not from that money derive an annual profit? Whence then is the merchant's profit? You will say, from his diligence and industry. Does anyone suppose that money ought to lie idle and unprofitable? He who borrows of me is not going to let the loan lie idle. He is not going to draw profit from the money itself, but from the goods bought with it. Those reasonings, therefore, against usury are subtle, and have a certain plausibility; but they fall as soon as they are examined more narrowly. I therefore conclude that we are to judge of usury, not from any particular pa.s.sage of Scripture, but by the ordinary rules of justice and equity."

To come at once to modern days and practical views. Let us suppose lending on interest forbidden by the Church and the law. Then sums of money required for good and legitimate business purposes must be begged as a great favour. No honourable man would do this. The instinctive repugnance felt by an independent man to place himself under pecuniary obligations which he could not reciprocate would stop many a promising young man of slender means from going to college, many a good man of business from using the most favourable opportunities. I am not speaking of borrowing money to gain temporary relief from pecuniary embarra.s.sment, but of money honourably desired to realize advantages of apparent life-value. So the necessitous would be doomed to remain in hopeless necessity until some benevolently-minded person with a ma.s.s of loose unemployed capital came to his rescue, and such men are not to be met with every day.

So far for the man who would like to borrow, but that the law will not allow it except as a free loan or gift. Then for the willing lender, if he dared. He has, say, a few thousands in hand, which he does not wish to spend. He looks round, if he is anxious to use it for good, for an object of his charity who seems least likely to disappoint him. Does our experience of human nature teach that a sense of grat.i.tude for benefits received is a good security for honourable conduct? Alas! in a mult.i.tude of cases--I fear the majority--the lender would only be met with cold and alienated looks when he expected to receive his own again, if indeed he found anywhere at all the object of his kindness. The memory of past ingrat.i.tude, the fear of worse to come, would dry the sources of benevolence, and make the upright and honest to suffer equally with the swindler and the hypocrite.

But there is no such fear now. The recognized system of lending upon approved security for a fair and moderate rate of interest removes the irksome, galling sense of obligation, and enables any man to borrow with a feeling that if he receives an obligation he is also conferring one; that if he makes ten per cent. by trading, or a good stipend by his degree, he will divide his profits fairly with the man who served him, and that he is helping him in his turn to keep his money together for the sake of his children after him. Take away these benefits, and what good is done by free lending? Not any that we can see with ordinary eyes, but a good deal of suspicion, disappointment, ingrat.i.tude, and loss.

An honourable man would a hundred times rather accept a loan as a matter of profit to the lender than as a charity to himself. The right result of an honourable system of borrowing and lending with equal advantage to both, _is_ the will of G.o.d, and not contrary to sanctification. The result of a compulsory system of charitable loans would lead only to the destruction of credit and mutual confidence, and the sacrifice of a mult.i.tude of Christian graces and virtues.

We cannot help observing with what vehemence Mr. Ruskin constantly thrusts the thief, the adulterer, and the usurer all into the same boat to be tossed against the breakers of his wrath. Now I would ask some one of those numerous disciples of his, whose affection almost prompts them to say to him, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," "Pray, my good friend, what is your own practice? Providence has blessed you with ease and affluence far more than you need for daily bread. What do you do with your money? Of course you would never think of investing in consols, in railway shares, or dock-bonds, would you? you would not lend money upon mortgage, or exact rent for your household and landed property? I see that you hesitate a little; you have something to confess. Come! what is it?" And my amiable friend replies, "Oh, but you see all the world is gone after interest of money; all our mutual relations are so intimately bound up with that accursed, abominable practice, that I have no alternative. _I have_ large sums lodged in various safe investments, and employ an agent to collect my rents and settle with my tenants." And so I am forced to exclaim, "What! you who are persuaded that usury, and theft, and adultery, are all of equal blackness, if you find that one sin is unavoidable, what about the other two? Would you then invite the robber and the licentious to sin with impunity, as you practise your own convenient iniquity, with the applause of the world and your own acquiescence?"

Positively I see no escape from this argument. It is the _argumentum ad hominem_,--generally an uncivil mode of address; but here, at any rate, it is impersonally used.

These are my views frankly stated. If I am wrong, even by the highest standard of Christian ethics, I shall be thankful for Mr. Ruskin's corrections.

ON LETTER X

The letters which I have received up to the present time (October 31st) in reply to Mr. Ruskin's have not failed to bring me not a little of disappointment. On the one hand, I see a man n.o.ble and elevated in his aims, and with highest aspirations, desiring nothing so fervently as to see the world and its pastors and teachers rising to the highest attainable level of religious and moral excellence; fearlessly rebuking the evils he sees so clearly; clothing thoughts that consume him in words that stir our inmost hearts; and yet I see him unavoidably missing his aim as all men are liable to do, through the defect of possessing human language alone as the channel to convey divine meanings; and, moreover, who cannot at every turn stay the course of their reasoning to explain that that which they speak apparently, and from the necessities of language, to _all_, is, as the most ordinary apprehension would perceive, really addressed to _some_.

On the other side, while I hear many expressing their thankfulness that things are now being said that "wanted saying," and are being spoken out with uncompromising boldness, others receive them with impatience, with irritation, with exasperation. I have been gravely advised to recommend Mr. Ruskin to withdraw these letters, to wash my hands of them, etc.

Sometimes this arises from unfamiliarity with Mr. Ruskin's most famous works; sometimes from entire unacquaintance with their number and their nature; as when a friend wrote to me before he saw or heard a word of the letters:--

"If Mr. Ruskin thinks we have generally read his _publication_ (_sic_) I think he is mistaken; all I know of _it_ is that I have occasionally seen _it_ quoted in newspapers, from which I gather that he holds peculiar opinions."

A lady, who looked well to the ways of her household, but knew very little of books, once asked me if Mr. Ruskin had not written a book called the "Old Red Sandstone." I hinted that probably she meant the "Stones of Venice," which was indeed the case. She knew it was something about stones! But she was an excellent creature nevertheless!

These two traits may fairly be paired together.

It should be observed, by clergymen especially who read these letters attentively, that they contain just what we clergy ought to be told sometimes by laymen, to whom we preach with perfect impunity, but who as a rule rarely make reply. I have just read Lord Carnarvon's excellent address on Preaching, delivered at the Winchester Diocesan Conference, and thank him as I thank, and for the same reason that I thank, Mr.

Ruskin. We need to be told wholesome though unpalatable truths sometimes, when we have descended from our castle-pulpits to meet, it may be, the eyes, and hear the voices, of impatient, irritated, and prejudiced critics.

I do not remember that so bold an attack, and yet so friendly, has ever before been made upon our weak points in modern times; and I may justly claim for Mr. Ruskin's letters a calm, self-searching, and, if need be, a self-condemning and self-sacrificing, examination. We are all too apt to cry "Peace, peace, where there is no peace." Why should the shepherds of Britain claim for themselves a more indulgent regard than the shepherds of Israel, whom Ezekiel, by the word of the Lord, addressed in the 33rd and 34th chapters of his prophecy?

Concerning the letter before us on the forgiveness of sins--each other's sins or debts, and our sins before G.o.d--it is not a question of theology, but of simple moral right and wrong; and I defy Mr. Ruskin's bitterest censors to deny, that, in this wicked world, men are more in earnest in deceiving, injuring, and swindling their friends than they are in seeking the love of their enemies. Has not our Lord told us long ago that "the children of this world are wiser" (that is, more earnest, consistent, and thorough-going) "in their generation than the children of light"?